


Tinker, Tailer, Wizard, Spy

by mariana_oconnor



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Community: paperlegends, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Post-Magic Reveal, Seriously very little shipping, This is mostly about the mystery, not very shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2019-03-25 03:57:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13825983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariana_oconnor/pseuds/mariana_oconnor
Summary: The Department is a government organisation specifically created to investigate and deal with magic and the supernatural.Until four years ago, Merlin Emrys was one of its agents, until he gave away his biggest secret and had to run away from his friends and his life.Until last night, Uther Pendragon was in charge of it, until someone killed him, very messily.Until last night, Arthur Pendragon was its second in command, until someone framed him for his father's murder.Now Arthur's going to the only person left in the world who can help him, and Merlin's going to find himself dragged back into a world he had thought was behind him.Meanwhile, in the aftermath of Uther's death and Arthur's alleged betrayal, Agent Leon Harris is determined that he's going to find out the truth, no matter what.





	Tinker, Tailer, Wizard, Spy

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Paper Legends in 2011. Sadly the art post has since been deleted.
> 
> I had to reread this to check the tags, and now I just want to rewrite the whole thing to explore the mystery (and the OT3 that's hinted at) in way more detail. Maybe I will, one day, when I have a heap of time on my hands. 
> 
> For now, though, I've posted it in its original form, messy and uneven though that may be.

It was past midnight when the knock came on the front door. At first Merlin thought it was just the wind battering it against the frame, but there was too much rhythm to it for that. It sounded, almost frantic. He froze for a moment, and cast a magical net out the door, trying to sense how many people were out there. Just the one. One person alone.  
  
He cursed the paranoia, and forced his heart back to a reasonable rate, calming his breath in his throat. It had been four years and he still jumped at shadows. Just one person, not half a dozen agents from the Department to drag him down the research facilities. Not a death squad from the magical community come to make him pay for betraying them.  
  
Just one person. But still, it was past midnight. No normal people would be banging on his door at this time of night. Five years ago he wouldn’t even have paused before going to answer it, in case it was someone who needed help. But becoming a wanted fugitive gave you reason to be more cautious. If it was a stranger looking for help they would move on soon enough.  
  
The banging continued, though it seemed to be growing weaker. It must be someone looking for him in particular, then. He didn’t know many people who would need to see him in the middle of the night, and Gwaine would have phoned, unless he hadn’t been able to. Merlin told himself not to be stupid. It was probably something entirely normal. It had been years. If someone were going to find him, they would have done so by now.  
  
He hadn’t made it upstairs to bed yet, glued to his computer in the study. The problem with the Internet, he mused, wincing at the dull burning of exhaustion behind his eyes, was that there was always  _something_  going on.  
  
The knocking continued, but weaker than before.  
  
“Coming,” he muttered, “I’m coming. It’s half past twelve – you can’t just expect me to...” he trailed off as he remembered that the person outside the door was almost certainly unable to hear him. “Whatever.”  
  
He fumbled the lock the first time. Adrenalin coupled with exhaustion. He made sure that as many defensives spells from his repertoire (which, like his paranoia, had grown in the past five years) as possible were ready, if he needed them, then tried the latch again. It didn’t help that his fingers were tired from typing and slight cramp, but on the second attempt he managed to prise the door open.  
  
It seemed heavier than usual, and he quickly realised why. He staggered back as the person outside fell on top of him, pushing the door out of the way. He made out a flash of blond hair and what looked, even just in the distant light of the street lamp, like thick, sticky blood.  
  
“Merlin,” a voice said, muffled into his T-shirt. “About bloody time.”  
  
Then his unexpected guest lost consciousness, and the only thing Merlin could think of to do was swear. He stared out past his uninvited house guest into the street, suspiciously, looking for shapes, bulky with body armour, or the glint of a streetlight on gunmetal. But there was nothing, and he could tell from where the man was draped over him, that he wasn’t dressed for a raid.

He had a suspicion he knew whose blood was soaking into his favourite t-shirt, though he had no idea what the blood, and its owner, were doing on his doorstep at all, let alone at this time of night. Merlin didn’t really know what to think about it. He had never expected to see Arthur Pendragon again, and he had always thought -  _known_  - that if he did, it would be at the head of the firing squad that had been tasked with taking him down as a dangerous magic user.   
  
But now it seemed that he had been wrong, and he didn’t know what to make of it. The smell of blood was strong. This wasn’t a ruse. But that was no reason to stand on the doorstep, open to any prying eyes, curious or antagonistic.  
  
“Arthur?” he said tentatively, shivering a little in a gust of cold wind that blew into the house. There was no response. “Arthur?” he tried again.  
  
“You always did make me do the hard work,” he muttered.  
  
It took more strength than Merlin really had to drag the resisting body of Arthur Pendragon into his hall and turn around to close the door with a shoulder. He might have let his grip slip a few times, and there was a slight incident involving Arthur’s head and the banister, but Merlin reasoned that whatever damage could possibly ever have been done to Arthur’s thick head had probably already been done by this time, if the blood was anything to go by. His shock had evaporated into irritation and anger that had been suppressed for years. What right did Arthur have, even drenched in his own blood, to turn up on his doorstep now, just when he was starting to settle down, starting not to see enemies round every corner? What right did Arthur have to come to him for help? How did Arthur even know where to find him?  
  
And what right did Arthur have to still make him  _want_  to help?   
  
So yes, Arthur’s head might have had a few more bruises by the time Merlin had finished moving him than it had had before, but, in Merlin’s opinion, that was what he got for being so inconsiderate.   
  
Arthur would have been horrified by how ungainly his journey to the sofa in the front room was. Merlin managed to turn them around so that Arthur had his back to him, and then he dragged Arthur, arms hooked under his armpits, to the tiny living room.  
  
By the time Arthur was on the sofa, with none of his limbs falling off (it wasn’t quite big enough for a small child to lie across, Arthur, at 6 foot, had his feet and calves lolling over one arm.  
  
“Bugger.” Merlin said, looking at the long smear of blood that the trip had left over his carpet. That was more than he had thought. Head wounds tended to bleed a lot, but that...  
  
Irritation ebbed for a moment, replaced by concern. He stared at Arthur’s face, frowning even in unconsciousness. He hadn’t seen that face in almost four years, and the last time he had, there hadn’t even been a flicker of emotion across it. The last time he had seen that mouth it had been shaping the words ‘leave or I  _will_  kill you.’  
  
He didn’t think of going to a hospital. Arthur had come here for a reason, and whatever that reason was, good or bad, it seemed fairly certain that he wasn’t going to be happy to wake up and find Merlin had ditched him at a hospital and run. Not to mention that Merlin tended to avoid all government buildings these days.  
  
And besides, Merlin didn’t owe Arthur a thing. He didn’t owe him anything at all.  
  
 _Except for your life..._  his brain provided handily. Reminding him that that last time the pair of them had been this close, Arthur would have been within the law to shoot him dead then and there. In fact, it would have been expected of him. But Arthur had let him go, let him run.  
  
But none of that mattered. None of that even came into the equation because this was  _Arthur_  and Merlin was never just going to leave him to clean up his own messes, was he? This was  _Arthur_  and they’d been through hell together and – the last time they had seen each other aside – they had always been willing to die for each other.  
  
So he grabbed the towels, the bandages and a tub of hot water and started to try and help Arthur’s wounds. One to the head – Merlin couldn’t tell whether he had fallen on something or been hit, a slight wound across the back of one thigh – not deep enough to be serious, luckily – which Merlin immediately was from a knife, defensive wounds to the hands and lower arms, and a slight shallow cut to the abdomen, which again was lucky to have missed everything important.  
  
“You always were a lucky bastard,” he said, trying to fill the unnatural silence of the early morning with some sort of noise. But the reply he half expected ( _It’s not luck, Merlin, it’s_ skill _!_ ) didn’t come.   
  
Bandaged and mostly naked, Arthur looked more like the man Merlin remembered. And wasn’t that a trip down memory lane he really didn’t want to take.  
  
The unconsciousness seemed to pass into a natural sleep after a little while, if the snores that were beginning to come were anything. So Merlin grabbed his phone and hit speed-dial.  
  
“Gwaine?”  
  
“ _You do realise it’s 2 am, Merlin...”_  came the Irish voice down the line.  
  
“Sorry, were you sleeping?” Merlin asked. His concern was met by a surprised laugh.  
  
“Not even close... so, did you just miss my voice?”  
  
“Arthur’s here.” Merlin said simply. There was a moment of silence.  
  
“Can you get out?” Gwaine asked, suddenly completely alert. “Never mind, I’m coming-“  
  
“It’s not like that,” Merlin cut in quickly, before Gwaine could plan their dramatic escape from the evil forces of the Pendragon private army. “I think- He looks like he’s in trouble.”  
  
“What sort of trouble?”  
  
“The sort of trouble where you get stabbed and then look up the last person anyone would ever think you’d contact so that you can hide out.”  
  
“Ah... that sort of trouble.” There was a rustling from Gwaine’s end of the phone line and Merlin could hear the clink of keys. Gwaine somehow made it sound as though that type of trouble was nothing to worry about and utterly common place. But then, knowing Gwaine, it probably was – or had been.  
  
“You don’t need to come.” Merlin said, with a sigh. Gwaine would make this real. And Merlin was sort of enjoying the slightly surreal edge to the situation.  
  
“Pendragon turns up on your doorstep in that sort of trouble?” Gwaine said with a huff of laughter. “This isn’t something I’m planning on missing. Plus – that sort of trouble has a way of hunting people down. You might need help.”  
  
Merlin considered protesting that he’d be fine for a moment, but he thought the better of it. He didn’t want to handle this alone, even if he could.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“What are friends for?”  
  
“Taking incriminating pictures.”  
  
“And I was hoping you’d forgotten that,” Gwaine said with a laugh. Merlin could hear the bang of a door. “I’ll be over in ten. Make sure Pendragon’s safe.”  
  
“I didn’t think you cared if he lived or died.”  
  
“I don’t,” Gwaine said, “I meant that you should tie him up.”  
  
“He’s unconscious.”  
  
“That’s what he wants you to think.”  
  
“I’ll see you soon, okay,” Merlin said, cutting off the conversation. Gwaine sighed, but let it drop.  
  
“Soon.”  
  
There was a click down the line and Merlin hung up, casting another look over at Arthur where he was lying.   
  
“I should have put some plastic bags down, shouldn’t I?” he said, seeing where the fabric of the sofa was being dyed dark brown with drying blood. “That’s going to cost me.” His first permanent(ish) home in years and Arthur had to come in a ruin the furniture. “It’s not even my sofa, it comes with the house. You’re worse than a pet dog, you know that?”  
  
It was easier to talk to Arthur like that: just joke and pretend that nothing had ever gone wrong. In the time it had taken Merlin to clean him up, almost all of the anger had ebbed away, replaced by a strange feeling of calm resignation. This was happening and he was just going to have to deal with it.  
  
He fetched his bag from upstairs, where it sat, permanently packed with some clothes, some money and some fake identification that Gwaine had managed to get for them. Merlin hadn’t asked where it had come from.  
  
He dropped the bag in the hallway, ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice and then looked at Arthur.  
  
Arthur mumbled something in his sleep, which made Merlin grin. Some things never changed.  
  
“I wonder if you still dream about zombie ducks,” he said to the air.  
  
*  
  
Arthur ached all over. He could feel his fingertips and teeth throbbing. A spot on his scalp burned angrily and the skin of his hands felt tight.  
  
Not to mention his feet appeared to have gone to sleep.  
  
He opened his eyes slowly, trying to piece together the day before, trying to remember where the pain and the sudden swell of panic had come from.  
  
The room he was in was small and the wall he was facing was covered in books mostly second hand and ratty, with a tiny television shoved in a corner, surrounded by so many books – piled on top and in front – that it was clearly never used except for special occasions.  
  
The carpet was grubby and a strange shade of greenish brown, which might once have just been green. Arthur was just wondering how he had come to wake up somewhere like this when he realised there was someone else in the room, a dark figure in the corner of his eye.  
  
Gwaine was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. He looked almost identical to the last time Arthur had seen him, guarding Merlin’s escape.  
  
 _Merlin_  Arthur’s thoughts caught on the name suddenly. Merlin. He had gone to see Merlin. That was where he was; he had run, bleeding, and he had gone to Merlin because Merlin was the only person he trusted.  
  
And Merlin must have called Gwaine because Gwaine was the only person he trusted.  
  
“Where’s Merlin?” Arthur asked, trying to pull himself upright. Gwaine gave a little huff of irritation – or amusement, it had always been difficult to tell with him.  
  
“Upstairs, catching up on the rest he missed last night stopping you from becoming a pretty corpse,” Gwaine said.   
  
“I...” Arthur looked down at the bandages half covering him. “I didn’t know where else to go.”  
  
“Perhaps to someone you didn’t betray and threaten to kill? Could have been a start,” Gwaine suggested, swinging himself up from his leaning position to walk over. His walk was the same too, swagger and dangerous, perfectly balanced, but seemingly a little drunken.  
  
“There’s no one left I can trust.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gwaine asked. “Finally worked out that all those willing minions of yours were just in it for themselves.”  
  
Arthur paused, gritting his teeth together. He had not expected to bump into Gwaine and he had no desire to go over this with him. The man had been a liability before, when his drinking, gambling and flirting had vied with his love of risks to make him one of the most temperamental agents Arthur had ever had the displeasure of working with, but now, as a civilian, he was worse. And he had an axe to grind with Arthur personally.  
  
But Arthur would need whatever help he could find and Gwaine was brave, and loyal to a fault. Even if looking at him reminded Arthur of what he should have been, rather than what he was.   
  
He pushed the guilt for things long past out of his head. Arthur couldn’t have done what Gwaine did, just running off on the spur of the moment. He had had other obligations.  
  
Which brought him to his reason for being here. He took a rushed breath in and set his face as blankly as possible before he opened his mouth.  
  
“My father is dead,” he said quietly.  
  
“Long live the King.” Gwaine’s voice had sarcasm oozing out of every syllable. “Thank you for delivering the good news yourself. Did you bring some champagne, because Merlin and me don’t really have the funds… one issue of being wanted fugitives.”  
  
“He was murdered.” Arthur said, a little louder. “My father was murdered yesterday and... they think I did it.” Gwaine blinked, his mouth opening slightly, and his brow crinkling, but he adapted well and didn’t bother to fill the air with platitudes they would have both known to be lies.  
  
“Who thinks you did it?” He asked instead, cutting straight to the point. Arthur was grateful for the lack of preamble. It was easier to handle questions than sympathy.  
  
“Everyone.” Arthur stared down at the green-brown floor, it swam for a moment, and his throat hurt with how tight it had become. He forced the feelings down, he had no time for that. He wasn’t free to grieve or fear. He needed to sort this out, as soon as possible.  
  
“Did you?” Gwaine asked.  
  
“Did I what?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Kill Uther. I wouldn’t blame you for it. Might even make me like you a little more.” Gwaine’s grin made Arthur want to punch him in the jaw, more than he’d wanted to punch anyone in a long time.  
  
“I didn’t kill my father!” Arthur said, his voice rising in indignation. He struggled to his feet as best he could. “Say that again and I’ll have your life.”  
  
Gwaine chuckled, walking forward a little further to take Arthur’s arm and push him back down to the sofa. Even the light touch made Arthur wince a little, and he knew that he couldn’t put up a fight right then  
  
“In your current state, I doubt you could best a small child. You don’t want to try me right now. Maybe when you’re better I’ll show you who’s really the better man.”  
  
“In your dreams,” Arthur muttered.  
  
“Go to sleep,” Gwaine told him shortly, with a half grin that might, just might, have been the beginnings of forgiveness.  
  
Alternatively, it could have been the beginnings of revenge. Gwaine always was difficult to read.   
  
But revenge or forgiveness, Arthur lowered himself, still aching, back onto the sofa and slid into the sort of exhaustion that caught up with you quickly. By the time he woke up again, Merlin and Gwaine were nowhere to be seen and he lay alone in the morning sun.  
  
*

There was blood everywhere. That was the first thing that Leon noticed. Blood splattered on the walls and ceiling, pooling on the floor in big sticky puddles. And in the middle of it all, with the skin of his chest peeled open, his ribs cracked and broken outwards, was Uther Pendragon, Head of the Department.   
  
His face hadn’t been touched at all, left clear of blemish, staring sightlessly at the tracks of his own blood on the ceiling. Whoever had done this had not wanted the man’s identity to be in question.  
  
Leon was proud that he managed to swallow the bile down before he was forced to vomit at the sight (and the smell – god the metallic stench of blood burning up his nostrils and clinging to the back of his throat).  
  
“It seems that he and his son had one argument too many,” the dark-suited official told him. Leon had hated the man on sight.  _Cedric_  he had introduced himself as. Cedric the civil servant, a paper pusher or a spy, a man who went around in a pristine grey suit and a perfectly starched white shirt and left all the hard work to other people before taking the credit for it.  
  
“Arthur wouldn’t do this.” Leon told him with utter certainty.   
  
“His fingerprints are everywhere... even in the blood, sir,” Cedric told him, gesturing to a distinct set of bloody fingerprints on the table. “His gun was found on the table, and at preliminary examination, it matches the bullets removed from the body.”  
  
“He was shot?” Leon asked in disbelief. Cedric gestured to Uther’s legs with a pencil.  
  
“In the kneecaps, presumably to stop him from running away while the rest of the torture was administered.” Leon really, really wanted to leave right then. He had woken up to the insistent ringing of his phone, jerked from a rather pleasant dream and one of the best nights’ sleep he had had in ages, to be told that  _this_  had happened. He hadn’t had time to breathe, hardly.   
  
Though he was grateful that he hadn’t had time for his coffee, because it was best that he had nothing in his stomach right now. And after that, he probably would never have been able to drink coffee again.  
  
“ -and they had been heard to have an argument earlier in the evening.” Cedric was still talking and Leon forced himself to listen. More ridiculous evidence against  _Arthur_  of all people.  
  
“They were family, they argued,” he said abruptly, before Cedric could frame Arthur for this further. “All I’ve heard from you so far is circumstantial evidence. Unless you have something more substantial than that.”  
  
“Not all the blood appears to belong to the elder Mr Pendragon,” Cedric said with a sour, on-and-off smile, which slipped past more quickly than the rush of a river. “Some short blond hairs have been found on the body and there’s DNA under the fingernails…” they both looked down at Uther’s mangled hands, “…the fingernails that remain, anyway. We’ve sent it off to be examined, but I suspect that it belongs to Mr Arthur Pendragon.”  
  
“You  _suspect_ ,” Leon said with contempt. “Suspicions aren’t proof. Everything you’ve said so far just makes me wonder whether Arthur’s another victim.”  
  
“He was seen leaving the building covered in blood.” Cedric said. His lips twitched in a smile that never quite made it to his face properly. It was clear that he’d been leaving that piece of evidence until last deliberately. “Alone.”  
  
Leon paused, his mind coming up blank. He looked down at the body in front of him, slaughtered in what would have had to be a fit of rage. The Arthur he knew would never have...  
  
It hadn’t been Arthur.  
  
Next to him, seemingly unruffled by the carnage, Cedric lifted a file he had been holding and flipped it open.  
  
“I also understand that the younger Mr Pendragon had recently been the subject of many reports of inappropriate conduct, a couple of drunk and disorderlies. He was on probation after beating up a fellow government agent...”  
  
“That wasn’t –“ Leon started. He remembered the incident, remembered pulling Arthur off Valiant as he tried to pound the man’s face into the floor. “He was provoked.”  
  
“Well, provoked or not, incidents like that might indicate an unstable personality.”  
  
Leon couldn’t imagine anyone more stable than Arthur and he said as much. Cedric smiled again, on, off, easy and meaningless.  
  
“I’m sure he was very charming, and I understand that you’d been working with the boy for a while, but we have to face facts – no matter how difficult it might be. Arthur Pendragon must be assumed as armed and dangerous and a traitor to the government and the organisation. Our priority at this point is to bring him in. To help him, you understand. The young man must be very disturbed.”  
  
“Yes, I suppose he must be,” Leon agreed. He didn’t doubt that Arthur had been there, and seeing your father like this, that would mess with anyone’s head.  
  
“And given that this was an inside job – the knowledge of the codes to Mr Pendragon’s home and so on, I’m afraid we’ll have to assign someone from the outside to stand as Interim head of department.” Leon nodded dumbly before his mind caught up. An Interim Commander? As the most senior of the agents, with Arthur missing, the command should have fallen to him. He turned to look at Cedric, alarm bells ringing in his head.  
  
“Who?”  
  
“A Miss... Morgause, I believe. She’s being brought up to speed as we speak.”  
  
*  
  
The Department for the Investigation and Control of Magical Phenomena, almost always referred to simply as “The Department” to avoid alarm, ridicule and discovery was one of the British government’s best kept secrets.   
  
Uther Pendragon had been its founding member and a legend in all parts of the government that knew of its existence. He had been a ranking official in the security services when he had come across definitive proof of the existence of magic just over twenty years ago, and he had been tasked to investigate and control its use since then. It had been a way of shutting him up back then, shoving him off into a side project that no one had expected to amount to anything. But he had made it more than that, built the Department from the ground up and, in the end, he had made them listen to him.  
  
The Department had gradually grown from a couple of men in the basement of Thames House to an independent body with almost a hundred agents. Uther Pendragon had stayed at its head through its entire life. Its agents were brought from wherever they could be found. Some were civil servants that showed abilities that Uther thought might come in useful, others came, like he himself, from the security services, and others from organisations like the police force and the army  
  
Leon Harris had been in the army for three years when he had encountered something that he had, at the time, been unable to categorise. His handling of the situation had drawn Uther’s attention and less than a month after the incident, Leon had found himself reporting to a building in the heart of London and being given a lecture on the existence of magic. He had found the place bizarre, but strangely brilliant to work in. The job was a curious mix of police, spy and soldier, which appealed to the five year old boy that lived somewhere in his head.   
  
Not that they were just a sort of magical police force, The Department also had a large group of scientists on call, led by Gaius an old colleague of Uther’s. They tried to come up with scientific solutions to magical problems and investigated the magic that was discovered, trying to find ways to use it to help.  
  
Once they had started looking for magic, it seemed to pop up around every corner. Groups of magic users popped up out of the shadows. They were mostly harmless, but some of them dangerous. And things had developed into a sort of equilibrium.   
  
Everything had been fine, going on as usual, until just under four years ago when everything had gone to hell. But they had begun to calm down again, recently. Nothing would ever be quite the same, but different had been becoming normal.  
  
And now Uther was dead, Arthur was on the run and Leon had no one to trust.  
  
*  
  
Arthur winced as he swung himself off the sofa. Sleeping there hadn’t done any good for his joints, and his injuries burnt like they’d been set alight.  
  
He went looking for Merlin and came across something that made him wish he hadn’t woken up for another ten minutes.  
  
Gwaine and Merlin were across the hall in a small study/dining room. The door was ajar, and Arthur followed the sound of murmured voices without understanding what they were saying.  
  
He was already looking into the room, before he realised.  
  
The moment was private, a gateway into somewhere that Arthur never wanted to go, and he never meant to. He pushed the door open a little more, and he could hear Gwaine and Merlin’s voices clearly, from where they stood by the opposite wall. Gwaine’s voice was soft and warm, and it made Arthur pause. He had never heard Gwaine like that before. He had only ever heard the bluster and the jokes, louder, brighter and brasher.  
  
He could see them now, as well, standing too close – not that either of them had ever respected personal space. This was more than a casual arm around the shoulders though. They stood facing each other, so close that they must practically have been breathing each other’s breath.  
  
“We don’t have to do this,” Gwaine was saying. “We could leave.”  
  
“You don’t mean that,” Merlin replied, his voice just as soft, but affectionate and amused. And that was a tone of voice Arthur had heard before, directed at him. It made his heart leap a little in his chest to hear it used for someone else.  
  
“I want you to know that you have the option.”  
  
“You’re not going to leave Arthur in the lurch,” Merlin said. He sounded so certain of something Arthur doubted to the bottom of his soul.  
  
“I’m not going to leave  _you_ ,” Gwaine said. His face was firm, seriousness etched into the line between his eyes.  
  
Arthur wanted to step backwards, but he didn’t know whether the movement of closing the door would draw Gwaine’s attention, half turned towards it as he was. He was torn. A part of him didn’t want to watch this scene, intimate and stolen as it was, it hit too close to home, reminding him of what he lost. Another part of him, the part Arthur always tried to listen to, wanted to leave because he knew he  _shouldn’t_  listen to this. And a third (slightly masochistic, Arthur admitted to himself) part of him, needed to watch, just to see it all in its glory – Merlin and Gwaine.  
  
“He needs us,” Merlin said, like it was that simple, like Arthur had never pointed a gun between his eyes.  
  
“Alright then,” Gwaine said. He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to Merlin’s forehead, making Arthur swallow a breath, his hand jerking upwards slightly. “We’ll save the damsel in distress, then. I always fancied myself a knight in shining armour.” Merlin laughed, though Arthur could tell it was a bit forced.  
  
“You’d be a crap knight,” he said. “You never liked rules.”  
  
“I’d be a knight errant, and I’d be brilliant at it.”  
  
Arthur backed up, as silently as he could, when Merlin’s hand came up to push at Gwaine’s shoulder. He walked back across the hall until he came to the bottom of the stairs, and then, making enough noise to be heard, he walked to the door again and pushed it open.  
  
The space between Merlin and Gwaine had grown, and Merlin looked a little guilty, though Arthur couldn’t tell whether that was directed at him or Gwaine.  
  
“Okay then,” he said. “Breakfast.”  
  
*  
  
If Gwaine was exactly like Arthur remembered him, Merlin was more so. He still had the strange look of confusion, the cheeky way of talking back and then opening his eyes wide in fake innocence. He still smiled too easily and too wide. He still made Arthur wish to turn time back just to try and make things between them better.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Merlin told him as Arthur gave a terse description of discovering his father’s body and what had happened next, the twist of confusion in his memory when he recalled the people who had been there, waiting for him. Merlin looked genuinely upset. “I wish I could have-”  
  
“Well you couldn’t,” Arthur cut him off. “But they... they said that they’d make it seem like I did it.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“If I knew, do you think I’d be in this mess?” Arthur asked, sarcasm coming more easily than explanations. He was too raw for this conversation. The image of his father was still in his mind and Merlin being so close and so earnest was too near to something he wanted. Something he’d thrown out of his own reach forever.  
  
He glanced over to the door again. Gwaine seemed to have developed a thing for leaning against doorframes. He was propped there like a bloody bouncer, or a body guard, watching Arthur with barely contained suspicion.   
  
“Were they wearing masks?” Merlin asked.  
  
“No,” Arthur said, “some sort of magical cover, I could see their faces, I just couldn’t... it was like seeing someone you met once at a party, or someone you don’t know on a train. I couldn’t recognise them, even if I wanted to. Now I can’t even remember if they were male or female.”  
  
“I know the spell,” Merlin agreed with a hum. Arthur almost asked him if he’d ever used it. Had he ever snuck in somewhere, magically anonymous? Had he used that particular trick to evade the Department’s security? He bit his tongue at the last moment.  
  
“Do you remember how many of them there were, at least?” Gwaine asked.  
  
“Three,” Arthur answered immediately. “Magic or not, I can still count.”  
  
“Unless one of them was invisible.”  
  
“I doubt it,” Merlin provided, not seeming to notice the tension. “That’s too difficult to hold for very long.”  
  
“Right,” Gwaine said, suddenly nodding as though something had occurred to him, as though he  _remembered_  that fact. Arthur swallowed a surge of jealousy that Gwaine knew that, that he and Merlin were sharing a quick grin at some joint reminiscence. But that wasn’t his right anymore, was it? None of this was. He was nothing now but the interloper. He was the third person, stuck on the outside.  
  
He wondered if he always had been. Had Gwaine  _known_  about the magic back before that incident four years ago? Had they laughed about it behind his back? It was something he had thought about before. Gwaine hadn’t been frozen by shock like the others. He’d stepped forward almost immediately. Was he just better at adapting to circumstances, or had he known? Arthur wanted to know the answer to that, it had plagued him, and at the same time he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want proof that he’d always been the third wheel.  
  
“I need to find out who they were, I need to get them.” He said, in lieu of anything better to say.   
  
“And how do you propose to do that?” Merlin asked and Arthur had to avoid his eyes, stare down at the floor, which was becoming an old friend. Arthur hadn’t really thought clearly when he went to Merlin’s. He had managed to hold it together long enough to use public transport, keeping the worst of the bleeding under control. The only thought in his mind had been ‘Merlin can help’. He knew that it had been a foolish thought. But back when he and Merlin had been on the same side – or when Arthur had thought they were on the same side – Merlin had always come through. Alone, scared and light headed from blood loss and shock, he had reverted to what his mind considered default. It wasn’t until he had woken up this morning that he had thought about  _how_  Merlin could make it better. And his answer hadn’t made him happy. He lifted his eyes to Merlin’s, guiltily. Though whether the guilt was directed at Merlin or his father, he couldn’t say.  
  
“Oh, so  _now_  you want me to do magic? Four years ago I was the evil traitor, completely untrustworthy and a freak who had betrayed everything, and now you’re here begging me to help.”  
  
The strangest thing about it, Arthur would always remember, was that there was no bite to Merlin’s words. They were amused rather than vindictive. Even as they echoed the things Arthur had said to him – the things he had had to say, to make Merlin run, to make him never look back. It was like Merlin didn’t even  _care_  anymore.  
  
“This was a bad idea,” Arthur said, struggling to his feet and walking to the door, but Gwaine blocked his way.  
  
“Apparently his highness has had another few knocks on the head in the past few years,” Gwaine commented over Arthur’s shoulder to Merlin.  
  
“He always was an idiot,” Merlin said with a long suffering sigh. “Sit down, Arthur. You wouldn’t get half way down the street like that and you know it.”  
  
“I’m more than capable of catching a bus, Merlin.”  
  
“And you’re also more than capable of passing out in one,” Merlin said.  
  
“Sit down,” Gwaine added, glaring Arthur down. His lips were quirking with amusement he was trying to hide.   
  
“Get out of my way,” Arthur said.  
  
“Make me.”  
  
The scuffle lasted less than twenty seconds, and Arthur found himself breathing in that same carpet he had been staring at.  
  
“You always did go down easily.”  
  
“If I weren’t injured…” Arthur said, wincing at the pain that was stabbing through his chest.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Gwaine said with a laugh, “if you weren’t injured you’d have kicked my arse all over the room. When you’re your old self again we’ll see about that, will we?”  
  
“Fuck off,” Arthur muttered, bucking in an attempt to throw Gwaine off his back.  
  
“Sorry, you’re just so comfortable,” Gwaine said, poking his knee into Arthur’s back a little more firmly for a second before slowly moving off and offering Arthur a hand to help him up.  
  
Pride was one thing, but Arthur knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand up properly without help, so he took the offered hand and was lifted easily off the floor and then clapped firmly on the shoulder.  
  
“You don’t change, do you?” Gwaine said, echoing Arthur’s own thoughts to exactly that he had to laugh.  
  
The tension seemed to dissipate then, and Arthur almost felt as though the last four years had never happened. For a moment, it was just the three of them messing around.  
  
Then Merlin broke the silence and everything came crashing back.  
  
“So, first we need to get you healed up a bit more,” Merlin said. “Then we’ll have to work out who wanted your father dead.”  
  
The words ‘who didn’t’ floated around in Arthur’s head, but they didn’t make it to his mouth.  
  
“You can heal me with magic?” he asked. “Why didn’t you do that before?” Merlin stared at him as though he was crazy.  
  
“Considering what you said the last time I did magic in front of you, I didn’t think that would be the best idea,” Merlin said. “They weren’t serious enough to kill you, you know. And… I’m not that good at healing magic.”  
  
Arthur raised an eyebrow, trying to convey the fact that he thought that the idea of Merlin being ‘good’ at anything was unlikely. That earned him a glare from Merlin.  
  
“Fine, well, you have my permission.” 

*  
  
The halls of the Department were virtually silent when Leon found his way back in, but they were still active. It was earlier than most people usually arrived in the mornings, other than the night shift, but it seemed that news had spread, and everyone had been brought in, or made their way in uninvited.  
  
And by everyone, Leon really meant  _everyone_.  
  
Morgana looked frantic when Leon bumped into her, but she had always been conscious of her appearance and her mascara was still perfect, but the eyes behind it were wide and troubled. She plucked at the sleeve of his jacket with one hand, pulling him to one side of the corridor. He went without process. He hadn’t even thought of her, and he cursed himself that he had been so carried away with his own troubles that he hadn’t considered Morgana, who had just lost  _everything_.  
  
“Is it true?” she asked. “They’re saying that Arthur... that Arthur...”  
  
Leon hadn’t been prepared for this when he came in. But then, he hadn’t been prepared to see his boss’s body splashed across the interior décor last night, so why he was expecting things to be like he expected, he didn’t know. But now he was faced with Morgana - and shouldn’t someone have been taking care of her? – asking him questions.  
  
“Of course he didn’t,” Leon said. He was trying to be reassuring, but she didn’t look like he was helping. “That’s what they’re saying. But we both know that Arthur would  _never_  do anything like that.”  
  
“You don’t think so?”  
  
“Of course not,” Leon stared at her. She looked uncertain, which shook him severely. The idea that  _Morgana_  could possibly think Arthur capable of the vicious savagery that would have been necessary to do  _that_  to his own father, or anyone come to that, was almost more than he could take. His voice rose above the more appropriate whisper, and he saw faces turn towards them. He lowered his voice again quickly. “You know Arthur. You know that he loves – loved – Uther.”  
  
“They were arguing so much recently,” Morgana said. Her hands twisted together.  
  
“Families argue,” Leon said, echoing the words that are insistent in his head. She still didn’t look convinced. He wanted to point out that she herself had seldom been in a room with Uther for more than a few minutes without having an argument of some kind, or Arthur for that matter. It didn’t mean she didn’t love them. But he had enough piece of mind not to mention it.  
  
“And Arthur was so... strange recently,” Morgana continued, “with the drinking. Sometimes he’d say things to me.” She looked around furtively, as though she was about to say something incriminating.  
  
“Things like what?” Leon asked, copying her movement to look around and check that no one was listening. Morgana was clearly distraught, and nothing she said right now could be taken as evidence. But that didn’t mean that Internal Affairs, wherever they were, wouldn’t try.  
  
“Like how much he hated Uther,” she said, slowly. The words dropped to a low murmur. In spite of that, they still hit Leon like a bullet, the shock chilling him to the core “How much he wanted to be free. What if this was how he did it?”   
  
“Arthur would  _never_ ,” Leon said. The icy feeling of shock began to wear away, replaced by burning anger. “He and Uther had their problems but Arthur would have sooner shot himself than kill his father. You know that, Morgana. Stop it!” She stared at him, clearly a little taken back, swallowing. She too glanced around, composing herself. He paused, realising what he’d just said and wanting to apologise at the same time as just wanting to get  _away_. She paused to recompose herself and he took the moment to rein in his anger.  
  
“You’re right, of course, Leon,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m being so silly.”  
  
“You’re upset,” he said, more gently. “You just lost... It’s a difficult time. You should go home and get some rest. I can drive you if you want.” He put his hand into his pocket, checking his car keys were still there, but Morgana shook her head.  
  
“No, no, it’s alright.” She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I’ll find my own way. Thank you, for listening to me. I know I must sound like a terrible person.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Leon assured her. “Any time.” She nodded, smiling a brittle smile and began to walk away. Leon turned to go himself but was stopped by Morgana’s voice calling him back.  
  
“Leon.” He turned immediately, without even thinking about it. She was looking back at him, caught, as though she was about to say something she didn’t want to.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I know you’re Arthur’s friend,” she said slowly. “But we both know that he’s been different since… you know.” Leon nodded tightly, acknowledging the name that was very carefully not being spoken, as it hadn’t been spoken in the Department in four years. “Don’t let your loyalty to him get in the way of what you know is right. We need you.” Leon stared at her for a moment. He knew that his face must be showing his shock clearly, but he couldn’t help it. Morgana had known Arthur since they were children and the way she was speaking. She was practically asking him to help the witch hunt.  
  
“You’re talking like you think Arthur did this,” Leon said, carefully. She didn’t deny it. “I won’t get in the way of the investigation,” he said, “but Arthur didn’t do this. I will prove that, even if I’m the only person on his side, I will fight his corner.”  
  
“Your loyalty is commendable,” Morgana said, her expression tightening in some indefinable way. “I hope it doesn’t lead you into trouble.”  
  
A young woman Leon didn’t recognise caught hold of his arm.  
  
“Excuse me, Agent Harris?” she said. “You’re expected in interview room 4. Mr Aredian would like to speak with you.”  
  
“I’ll be right there,” he said, turning back to say a last few words to Morgana, but when he looked up, she had gone. Leon sighed and turned back to the woman with as much of a smile as he could muster. She looked a little scared. He wondered what he must look like, with barely an hour of sleep under his belt, and worry settling with discomfort on his shoulders.  
  
“Interview room four,” he said, she nodded mutely then half ran off, back into the main office room. Leon turned in the opposite direction, to go to Interview Room Four. There was no need to ask what this would be about. He’d heard the name Aredian before. Internal Affairs. They were worse than vultures.  
  
*  
  
Merlin hadn’t been lying about not being that good at healing. The wounds closed up a little, as though they were a few days older, enough that Arthur could move normally, but the pain was still intense, and Merlin had to send Gwaine to fish around in his medicine cabinet for the strongest painkillers he had available. Arthur swallowed a couple followed by a glass of water and sat, feeling a little light-headed at the table.  
  
Breakfast was passed in near silence, the tension returning and making everything strained. Arthur didn’t know how to start a conversation. There didn’t seem to be anything available to say. Merlin, across from him would open his mouth and then shut it again, thinking the better of whatever it was he wanted to say. Gwaine seemed to have devoted his entire body to eating Merlin out of house and home. Not that there was much of a home. The furniture was all old, clearly having come with the house. The few possessions Merlin had were either in the bag by the door, or in boxes, apart from the books in the front room and Merlin’s computer. They seemed to be his only pretences at normality. But then, Arthur didn’t suppose that normal had come close to how Merlin had been living in the past few years.  
  
Finally, after Merlin had looked up for the fortieth time, opening his mouth, only to close it and look away when Arthur waited for him to speak, Arthur’s patience ran out.  
  
“Spit it out, Merlin,” he said.  
  
“Uh,” Merlin said, eloquent as ever. “I was just thinking we should decide who wanted your father dead. If we’re going to work out who killed him, we’re going to need some suspects aren’t we?”  
  
Arthur froze, food half way to his mouth. He had a horrific moment where all he could smell was blood, and all he could see was his father’s face. Shit, shit, shit. He had thought he was handling it. He forced a deep breath of air into his lungs, and concentrated on his heart beat, which seemed to be echoing though his entire body.  
  
He knew that Merlin and Gwaine were watching him with concern and it pricked at his pride. He wasn’t going to fall apart.  
  
“Right,” he said. “Suspects. Rogue magic users, I suppose.”  
  
“Right,” Merlin said slowly, looking unconvinced. He flicked a finger, almost absently, and a piece of paper and a pen flew onto the table, dropping down in front of him. “You know there aren’t as many of them as you think, don’t you?”  
  
“It had to be someone magical,” Arthur said, remembering the gore. “You said yourself that the memory problem I’m having is a spell. And what they did…” he paused.  
  
“Okay,” Merlin said. “I was just saying. This seems personal, you know. Killing him and framing you.” Gwaine nodded and hummed his agreement. Arthur felt a little sick for a moment.  _Personal_. Someone he knew had done this.  
  
“Well, do you have any suggestions?” Arthur asked, a little more bitterly than he had intended.  
  
“It needs to be someone who could get into your father’s suite without being flagged by security,” Merlin pointed out.  
  
“Couldn’t they have got in magically?” Arthur asked. Merlin flushed and Gwaine chuckled slightly. Arthur glanced between them.  
  
“You used to live with your father,” Gwaine said, smirking.  
  
“Yes,” Arthur agreed. In the first few years of working at the Department, he had lived with Uther. It had been easier than looking for his own place. But what that had to do with people magically entering the flat he had no idea.  
  
“I might have… put up some precautions,” Merlin said. His eyes met Arthur’s tentatively.  
  
“Magical precautions?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Arthur stared at him for a long moment before blinking in disbelief. He had known that Merlin’s grasp of survival was tenuous at best, but surely there must have been some things that he  _knew_  were tantamount to suicide.  
  
“You cast magic on  _Uther Pendragon’s_  personal flat?” he asked, incredulous. Merlin shrugged.  
  
“Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d-“ Arthur began, then stopped. He heaved in as much air as he could, making his injuries complain, even through the haze of painkiller. “How stupid are you?” he asked.  
  
“There were threats,” Merlin said. He didn’t even look concerned. “Someone warned me that I couldn’t watch you every second of the day. So I had to do something.” Arthur didn’t miss that ‘Someone’. He wondered who it had been. He didn’t imagine that it had been a friendly someone. And setting up protection? How long had Merlin been saving his life with magic, without Arthur even knowing?  
  
“You could have warned me,” Arthur suggested. “Unless you felt I was incapable of taking care of myself.”  
  
“She was a very powerful sorceress,” Merlin said. Arthur sighed, before turning to Gwaine.   
  
“And you knew about this?” he demanded. Gwaine held up his hands in a placating way.  
  
“Only after we’d already left,” he said. “I asked him how he thought he was going to save your life from all the way out here, and he said that he’d taken certain measures.”  
  
Arthur wanted to yell at them both, but he couldn’t think of a reason to, not really, and he subsided, settling back into the uncomfortable kitchen chair.  
  
“So,” he said after a moment, “if you’re so well informed about who wants to kill me, then perhaps you’d better start the list then. That sorceress, I suppose she’d better go on there.”  
  
“Nimueh,” Merlin agreed, scribbling down the name.  
  
“Anyone else who threatened to kill me that you ‘forgot’ to mention at the time?” Arthur asked. Merlin gave him his best innocent smile, but he wasn’t even vaguely fooled.  
  
As it was, there had been. In the end they had a rather lengthy list, to be honest. He couldn’t quite stop his jaw from dropping open as Merlin listed name after name of people, half of whom Arthur had never even heard of, until the list was covering both sides of the notepaper.  
  
“That’s a lot of names,” Arthur said mildly.  
  
“Don’t forget the Russians,” Gwaine said. Arthur turned to stare at him, Merlin mirroring his movement.  
  
“The Russians?” he asked after a moment.  
  
“Gwaine always blames the Russians,” Merlin said.   
  
“Why?”  
  
“It’s always the Russians,” Gwaine replied. “Something I learnt from watching James Bond.”  
  
“I did wonder where your obsession with blowing things up came from,” Arthur commented wryly. The grin that spread over Gwaine’s face was a sight from another era.  
  
“C4 and alcohol,” Gwaine said. “My two favourite things.”  
  
“So, no ‘the butler did it’?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Did your father have a butler?” Gwaine asked, seemingly taking the suggestion entirely seriously. Arthur shook his head. Gwaine spread his hands wide as though everything was self-evident. “Must have been the Russians then.”  
  
“Gwaine’s Ian Fleming induced racism aside,” Merlin said, casually cutting in. “We should cross-reference with those who could get in there, and who are powerful enough to cast a charm to blur them like you said. Or have the means to get someone else to do it for them.”  
  
“How could any of them have access to my father’s home?” he asked. “It’s not like we hand out the door codes to anyone who asks for them. And the security guards would stop anyone they didn’t recognise. That’s what they’re there for.”  
  
“They could change their appearance to get past the security guards,” Merlin said with a shrug. “That’s easy enough. I’ve done it before.”  
  
Arthur opened his mouth to ask when and where, but thought better of it.  
  
“The codes are more difficult,” Gwaine said. “You made those alarms magic resistant yourself, and I’ve seen that security system. You’d have to be an expert to crack it. So we’re down to magic users more powerful than you and people who had the codes.”  
  
“Right,” Merlin went through the list, crossing people off arbitrarily. Arthur watched him curiously until the paper was mostly lines and Merlin was looking over the few names left with interest.  
  
“Okay,” he said. “We’re down to Nimueh, Mordred, Myror and Catrina,” he said.  
  
“Catrina?” Arthur asked, incredulous. “My father’s ex-wife, Catrina?”  
  
“Yes,” Merlin said, shifting uncomfortably.  
  
“Why is my father’s ex-wife on the list, Merlin?” Arthur asked, trying to keep his voice level and calm. “She wasn’t a magic user.”  
  
“Uh…” Merlin said, which really answered that question.  
  
“And you didn’t think that I should know that?” Arthur asked, amazed. His father and Catrina had been married for three years, torturous years by Arthur’s count. She had been thoroughly unpleasant, just as soon as they were married, but he had never suspected her of being anything more than the gold digging bitch she appeared. But then, he’d never thought of Merlin as more than the hapless idiot who tripped over his own shoelaces. He was beginning to wonder if he’d spent his earlier years in some sort of oblivion bubble.  
  
“I did,” Merlin said. “But she knew that I was a magic user too, and if I told you about her then she’d tell you about me and no one would have believed me over her.”  
  
“And, in order to be on the list, she’d have to want to kill my father too. Doesn’t that seem like something you should have told me as well?”  
  
“I managed to convince her to go away,” Merlin said. “She wanted you and Uther for a spell, but I gave her an alternative and she agreed to leave you alone.”  
  
“And you believed her?”  
  
“I-“ Merlin sighed. Arthur remembered something, his brain catching on a detail.  
  
He could remember going to his father’s that night. It had been freezing outside, and he had had his coat pulled as tightly around him as he could. The street had been full of cars, and he’d almost been run over by one as he’d crossed the road. He’d been moving too fast, trying to keep himself warm, and he hadn’t looked properly. The car had roared barely half a foot in front of him and he had glared after it. The registration number had rung a bell in his head, but he hadn’t realised. It had been so long since he’d seen that car, and he’d thought that it was one of his colleagues, or someone who lived nearby, and that was why he had known it. But it hadn’t been that.   
  
“She was there,” Arthur said.  
  
“Catrina?” Gwaine asked. “You’re sure?”  
  
“Her car. I saw her car,” Arthur supplied.  
  
“Going in or coming away?” Merlin asked, leaning forward over the table.  
  
“I don’t know,” Arthur said with a shrug. “But it can’t have been her, can it?” he said. “She almost ran me over. My father was dead before I got in there and whoever did it was waiting for me.”  
  
“If she almost ran you over then she definitely knew that you were there,” Merlin said slowly. Maybe she went back in to kill two birds with one stone.”  
  
The three of them stared at the list.  
  
“Whether she did it or not, she’s the best lead we’ve got,” Gwaine said.  
  
“Then we’d better go and talk to her,” Arthur said, standing up.  
  
“Brilliant,” Gwaine said, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders and grinning. “Road trip, then. It’ll be like old times… except without the snazzy uniforms.”  
  
“The Department doesn’t have uniforms,” Arthur pointed out. It was a clumsy attempt at light hearted conversation, but Gwaine was always good at soothing those over.  
  
“Exactly like old times, then.”  
  
“Apart from the bit where my father’s dead, I’m running for my life, suspected of his murder and we’re on our way to see someone you think wants to kill me,” Arthur tried to keep his voice flat, and it mostly worked. Thinking of things as a joke was always a good ploy to keep the demons down.  
  
“Definitely more exciting than old times,” Gwaine said as Merlin elbowed him in the side.  
  
“You’re just mad I interrupted that brawl you tried to get in last Thursday,” Merlin said mildly.  
  
“I’ve missed a good brawl,” Gwaine admitted. “The problem with living under the radar is that you never get to have any fun.”  
  
“Gwaine’s been having difficulty not getting arrested,” Merlin commented to Arthur, like that was just a fact of life.  
  
“You should have just left him to the police,” Arthur said. There was a moment of silence as the other two stared at him. Arthur scanned his words for a moment, but couldn’t find why they seemed to think the comment so horrendous.  
  
“The Department monitors police traffic,” Merlin pointed out, “and they have our prints, DNA and pictures on file.” He left unsaid what would happen when Gwaine’s identity was found. None of them needed  _that_  spelling out. Uther had been very clear over the years in his treatment of ‘dangerous’ magic users and Arthur had heard his tirades against the ‘traitors’ hiding in their midst. Dead or alive would have been the order, and no one would have cared about the state of the bodies.  
  
“Ah,” Arthur said and awkward silence fell again. He almost opened his mouth to apologise, but then closed it again when he recalled, almost uncomfortably, that he had nothing to apologise for. They were the traitors, the liars and the fugitives.  
  
*

The Research and Development Centre wasn’t a place that most members of the Department went. It was mostly underground, and the staff members were peculiar. It had earned the nickname of the Morgue back years before, though no one could quite remember how, and it was apt. There was a strange prickle that would run up your spine when you walked through the door, like someone walking over your grave, people said.  
  
It was Gaius’ domain, and Uther Pendragon had never been seen to cross the threshold, which made it a curious place all by itself. Uther had been the sort of man to micromanage, but there had been something about the density of magical artefacts in that place that had made the man uncomfortable. He had ordered Gaius up to his office for all his reports and mostly allowed the place to chunter along at its own pace, which it had, quite merrily. If there was one part of the Department that wasn’t stuttering and stalling without the loss of their fearless leader, then it was R&D.  
  
The basic thought behind its existence was ‘know thine enemy’. It had been started so that they could find non-magical ways to counter magical threats, but over the years, thanks to input from people higher up than even Uther Pendragon, it had expanded to finding ways to control magic for their own purposes.  
  
It was the Research and Development Centre that had designed the anti-magical armour that the agents wore. Unicorn hair woven into them would repel a significant amount of magical attacks, and the Cross of Lorraine built into the design of the front was a powerful symbol of protection. But as well as protection and defence, they designed weaponry and any other gadgets they could think of. If you went down there on a regular basis, you learnt not to touch anything.  
  
Gaius ruled over the whole sector with the strange sort of sharpness that appeared almost absent-minded. He was rumoured to be older than anyone in the world, among the younger agents. They said he’d found the secret of eternal life, back in the beginnings of the Department, and he couldn’t die. They also said that he had too much blackmail material on people high up in government to ever be retired.  
  
Gaius himself didn’t much mind the rumours, they gave him some amusement. It was more honest to say that he was still there because no one else knew enough to take over, or they knew too much to want to.   
  
The news of Uther’s death hadn’t taken long to filter through the Department, even to the basement levels of the Research and Development Centre, and work was subdued. Internal Affairs had already been down to ask Gaius how anyone could have got past the security system he had designed personally, and he had sent them away without telling them much of anything other than the fact he was busy.  
  
His pet project was the generator. It stood in the centre of the main room, a series of hoops made from silver alloys, that were fixed to central struts, and surrounded by a complicated mesh of wiring and symbology that no one but him had a hope of understanding properly. It was intended to convert magical energy into electrical energy, but he hadn’t managed to get it working yet. He tinkered with it in his spare time.   
  
He was poring over the diagrams for it when the door swung open.  
  
Morgana swept in, looking efficient, controlled and overcome, all at the same time.   
  
She was one of the few people who had never seemingly been unnerved by the cavernous and sub terrestrial Research Centre. She had known Gaius since she was a baby and she had searched him out on her first day working in the Department and seemed at home surrounded by the odds and ends that lived down there with him. So it wasn’t unusual for her to walk in like she owned the place, but today her presence wasn’t expected anywhere.  
  
Gaius looked up as soon as she walked in.  
  
“Gaius,” she said, crossing over to him. “Have you heard?”  
  
He nodded gravely stepping away from the blue prints and resting a hand gently on her arm.  
  
“They’re saying it was Arthur,” she said.  
  
“I know, Morgana,” Gaius said. “They’ve been asking me questions.”  
  
“Do you… Do you think it was?”  
  
“Arthur?” Gaius asked, astonished. “Of course not! Arthur would never have dreamed of hurting his father.”  
  
“But they had been arguing so much lately.”  
  
“You know Arthur, Morgana. You know that he wouldn’t do anything like this.”  
  
“I know, but it’s so  _terrible_ ,” she sat on a stool pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, shutting her eyes. “What they’re saying. I can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s all just mixing together in my head.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be here today,” Gaius said softly. “You should be taking the time off.”  
  
“And stay at home? Alone?” she asked. “I prefer to be around people. I don’t want to be alone.”  
  
“I’m sure we could find someone to take care of you,” Gaius said.  
  
“With what happened, everyone’s so busy,” she sighed. “I came down here to get away from it all.”  
  
“Of course, my dear,” Gaius said. “Would you like something to drink, or eat?”  
  
“A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you,” she smiled at him, her face wan.  
  
“I’ll go and see if I can find you some,” he nodded and headed to the small kitchen on the other side of the room.  
  
He came back to find her staring at the blueprints intently.  
  
“I don’t know how you make sense of half of this,” she said with a sigh, gratefully accepting the tea.  
  
“I invented the annotation,” Gaius said. “It was worse in the beginning when we didn’t know what anything was at all, and no one knew how to write anything down. These days at least we agree on some things.” He looked at Morgana curiously.  
  
“What does this even do?” she asked, “I see you working on it all the time.”  
  
“Energy transfer,” Gaius said, slowly. “But you don’t want to hear about my tinkering, I’m sure.”  
  
“I need to take my mind off things,” Morgana said, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t think about it anymore, Gaius, I can’t. I’ll go mad. Just… talk to me about something, anything, please?” Gaius opened his mouth to answer but there was a familiar rush of air as the door was pushed open again and they both turned to see Gwen standing there.  
  
“Gaius?” she asked. “I’ve got some papers that you need to sign,”  
  
“Put them on my desk, would you, please, Gwen,” Gaius said. She smiled and nodded before moving off. When she had moved to his desk, Gaius turned back to Morgana. “Where was I? Oh yes, this contraption. With oil running out, and global warming, the government’s looking at different sources of energy,” Gaius said.  
  
“Like wind turbines?” Morgana asked.  
  
“Precisely,” Gaius agreed, smiling a little. “I was asked to look into a way to convert magical energy into energy that we could use.”  
  
“But where would you find a source of magic big enough to make that worthwhile?”  
  
“You wouldn’t,” Gaius said, sighing, “but that’s the government for you. They don’t think things through. I’ve had to build in a magical conductor as well, to concentrate the magic. But it did present an interesting question. All energy can be converted, after all, so we must be able to convert magical energy somehow, mechanically, like magic users can convert it into kinetic energy, or light energy, or heat energy.”  
  
“Does it work?”  
  
“Not yet…” Gaius sighed. “It does conduct magical energy, and focus it, but I haven’t managed to get the conversion working yet. I really need to work with a magic user. But that’ll never happen.”  
  
“And what about this?” Morgana asked, picking up a strange collection of tubing.  
  
“Portable magical shield,” Gaius said. “Or it will be, when we can get it to work for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Gilli’s supposed to be working on that one. But he’s off sick today.”  
  
“And this?” Morgana pointed to another device. But Gaius didn’t get a chance to answer because Gwen came up to them.  
  
“Sorry to interrupt again, but there’s a memo about funding, it says urgent, and I need to you sign off on something.”  
  
“Funding again,” Gaius said, shaking his head. “They tell me to do things and then they complain when I tell them how much it will cost. Sometimes I think that the government thinks we’ve got some sort of magical money tree down here.” He gave Morgana an apologetic look and rested a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m going to have to deal with this, feel free to stay and look around.”  
  
“That’s fine, Gaius. I know that life must go on,” she smiled at Gwen who returned the expression tentatively.  
  
“How are you, Morgana?” Gwen asked.  
  
“As well as I can be, in the circumstances,” Morgana replied. “Gaius was just distracting me.”  
  
“Sorry to interrupt.”  
  
“Nonsense,” Morgana said before taking a sip of tea. “You have a job to do. I’ll manage a few minutes alone. And I know better than to touch anything.”  
  
“I’ll be back in just a moment,” Gaius said, crossing over to the door of his small office and letting Gwen in. “Make yourself at home.”  
  
“I will,” Morgana assured him.  
  
*  
  
The interview rooms in The Department were designed to be bland. Beige walls with no distinguishing features, a simple table and boring chairs. People being interrogated would have nothing to look at but the face of their questioner, and nothing to distract them or entertain. If you spent enough time in them, it was said, you would go made from the utter  _nothing_  of them.  
  
Leon had sat in those rooms a thousand times before, and his mind had always been on getting to the truth. He had never realised how well the effect worked. The mind had nothing to focus on but why he was here. He had never been on this side of the table before.  
  
On the other side was a man with slicked back grey hair and a smile that slipped on and off like a snake shedding its skin. He was perfectly still, which made Leon feel the need to fidget just to balance him out.  
  
But he knew better than that. When a suspect fidgeted, you had him. Every flick of the fingers was a crack, and you could burrow into those cracks and break them apart from the inside out. So he quashed the need for  _movement_  and looked the man from Internal Affairs in the eye.   
  
“My name is Aredian,” the man said, his voice as cold and still as the rest of him. He would have made a perfect mime, Leon thought, his mind scraping the barrel of inane, to try and distract himself.   
  
“First name or last name,” he asked.  
  
“You may call me Aredian,” Aredian said, and Leon knew that was as much of an answer as he was going to get. “You are Leon Harris?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Leon said. Short and sweet was the way, don’t give away anything more than you had to.”  
  
“How would you describe your relationship with Uther Pendragon?” Aredian asked. Leon held his gaze.  
  
“He was my superior.”  
  
“Yes, but would you say that you had a close working relationship?”   
  
“I am the second most senior agent in the organisation,” Leon said, emphasising the present tense, wherever Arthur was, as far as Leon was concerned, he was still at the top. “It’s to be expected that we worked together closely.”  
  
“Yes, of course.” Aredian smiled his on-and-off smile. “His phone records indicate that you were among the people he contacted the most.”  
  
“As I said, as a high ranking agent of the organisation, we had reason to speak quite often.”  
  
“You dedication to your work is admirable,” Aredian told him in a voice that was clearly veiling mockery. “And Arthur Pendragon?”  
  
“I had reason to speak to him as well.” Leon forced himself to relax his shoulders.  
  
“Did you have a close working relationship?”  
  
“We worked together.”  
  
“Yes, I can see that.” One of Aredian’s hands moved with efficient, sharp movements to open the manila file in front of him before stilling completely again. “In the last four years, you have worked 76% of Arthur Pendragon’s assignments with him. The closest thing he has had to a partner since the regrettable incident with Mr Emrys.”  
  
Leon bristled slightly. He couldn’t stop the straightening of his back at such a cavalier mention of something that had almost destroyed everything – and Arthur most of all.  
  
“We are not partners. As we were the most senior agents, it made sense for us to be sent on more difficult tasks.” Leon’s eyes drifted over the beige for a second, but there really was nothing for his eyes to stick on and they slid back to Aredian’s face and his cold, glassy eyes, like mirrors or sheets of ice.  
  
“Being so close to the Pendragons, did you notice any enmity between them?”  
  
“No more than between any father and son,” Leon lied. He wouldn’t mention Uther’s raised voice, or Arthur’s outraged, despairing silences, punctuated by knuckles hitting walls as soon as he left his father’s sight. He wouldn’t ever mention the days he would notice Arthur staring at the pen that Merlin had given him in the office secret Santa and glaring at emails that came in showing his father’s name.  
  
“Sadly patricide is not unheard of,” Aredian said. “You admit to working closely with Arthur Pendragon, but you didn’t have a hint of this?”  
  
It was a trick question: say no and admit incompetence, say yes and admit culpability.   
  
“No,” he said firmly, meeting Aredian’s eyes. “And if you believe Arthur Pendragon capable of killing his father, then you clearly never knew the man.”  
  
“You believe he is innocent.”  
  
“I know he is,” Leon said. He was showing his hand, wearing his loyalties for the world to see, but he had never been good at politics. “No family is perfect, but Arthur loved his father and he would rather have died himself than let his father die.”  
  
“Your loyalty commends you,” Aredian said. “But even you have to admit that liquidating his funds and disappearing are hardly the actions of an innocent man.”  
  
“They are the actions of a man who is being hunted down by the people who killed his father and framed him for the murder, though,” Leon replied, allowing his own smile to curve his lips. “If someone could get to Uther Pendragon, they could get to anyone.”  
  
“I see you are one of life’s optimists.” Aredian said. “I can only hope that you’re proved right about Mr Pendragon’s innocence.” Leon tried not to flinch at the tone in his voice which clearly said that he hoped that Leon was proved anything but right, and he was going to make sure that that was true as well.  
  
*  
  
“God forbid that I ever claim to be the sensible one of the three of us,” Gwaine says under his breath, “but breaking into the house of a possible murderer when we’re wanted by the authorities and one of us is heavily medicated doesn’t seem the best idea we’ve ever had.”  
  
“Remember that time in London, where you were ensorcelled to think you were a chipmunk?” Merlin asks.  
  
“I never said it was the worst,” Gwaine hisses back, “I just said it’s not the best. And I made an excellent chipmunk.”  
  
Arthur wishes they would shut up. The pain medication is wearing off and his side is beginning to ache again, just at the edge of unmanageable. He’s never really broken into a house before, either, not like this. It was always more official and always with the knowledge that he had the full backing of the British government.  
  
Up until now he’s been innocent of all charges. In about three minutes he’s really going to be a criminal, rather than just an official criminal like he is at the moment. He glares at the fence they’re crouching next to.  
  
“No one would ever mistake you for the sensible one,” he says back, as quietly as he can. “Anyone sensible would  _shut up_.”  
  
“Sorry for trying to lighten the atmosphere,” Gwaine says.  
  
Arthur doesn’t really know what they’re waiting for. He’s just crouching down in some bushes. He can’t hear anyone on the road, or any cars even. He takes another moment anyway, just to pull himself together.  
  
“Ready?” he asks. The other two nod, entirely serious for once.   
  
They walked up to the back door and Arthur starts fishing in his pockets for the paperclips he always keeps in there, just in case.  
  
The just in case in his mind had never really involved lock-picking though, and he’s never understood how it works, but from what he’s seen you just jiggle the unfolded paperclip around a little and the door magically opens.  
  
The door magically opens.  
  
And Arthur’s still got his hand in his pocket. He turns to Merlin who’s pushing it open; there’s an unrepentant expression on his face.  
  
“We’re trespassing, and wanted by the police,” Merlin says, like he didn’t just use magic without batting an eyelid. “We’d have been here all day if I’d let you do it. Now let’s go inside where nosy suburban neighbours  _can’t_  see us breaking and entering.”  
  
Gwaine chuckles and walks between the two of them and into the house. Merlin follows him and Arthur stands dumbfounded and outraged for a second before dragging his hand out of his pockets and following them. He’s not used to this new, competent Merlin, and he doesn’t like being wrong-footed like that. He’s a mess, physically and mentally, he knows that, but every time he feels like he’s doing something, Merlin’s the one to do it right. His irritation is mounting, but he’s not sure what he can do about it because it’s not like Merlin’s doing it on purpose.  
  
Well, he’s probably not doing it on purpose.  
  
Gwaine sits down at Catrina’s dining table and checks out a bottle of what looks like very expensive alcohol. He lets out a low whistle between his teeth.  
  
“The divorce settlement must have been good,” he says, before opening the bottle.  
  
“Gwaine!” Arthur says, as loudly as he dares. Gwaine swigs a mouthful without a sign of guilt.  
  
Even Merlin’s rolling his eyes as Gwaine makes an exaggerated ‘ah’ sound, looking at the bottle with respect.  
  
“We’re not here to get drunk,” Arthur tells him, “we’re here to find out if-“  
  
There is the simultaneously terrifying and welcome sound of footsteps on the stairs.   
  
“Jonas, is that you?”  
  
It’s been more than six years, but Arthur hasn’t forgotten the sound of his ex-stepmother’s voice, clear as ever. He freezes, Gwaine freezes and Merlin starts to twitch.  
  
“Jonas?”  
  
The footsteps get closer and Arthur makes the decision without even thinking about it. If there is the slightest chance that Catrina is involved in his father’s death then Arthur will get it out of her. He slips to flatten himself against the wall by the door.  
  
He’s just in time, a few seconds later the door creaks open and Catrina sees Gwaine sitting at her table.  
  
“Who on earth are you?” she demands, stepping forwards.  
  
“Me?” Gwaine asks, putting his feet up on the table. “Don’t mind me, I’m just the distraction.”  
  
“Distraction from what?” That’s Arthur’s cue. He grabs her by the shoulder and pins her to the wall, his forearm across her throat, pushing her up so she can’t get enough leverage to kick him.  
  
“Hello,” he says. She glares at him, and then over his shoulder when Merlin comes to stand behind him. There’s something in her face when she looks at Merlin which is a little too vicious for just knowing him in passing, as Arthur had thought she did. He files it away as a question to ask later. “You’ve heard, I assume?”  
  
“Yes,” Catrina croaks around his arm, “I heard.” She smirks a little. “Can’t say I’m sorry that Daddy’s dead, though.”  
  
“Why were you outside his building that night?” Arthur asks.  
  
“We had something to discuss,” Catrina tells him.  
  
“He wanted nothing more to do with you,” Arthur growls, pushing his arm into her neck a little more, just enough to make her gasp for breath that isn’t there, before relaxing it so she can talk again.  
  
“It didn’t matter what he wanted,” she tells him, “we had business to discuss.” Her tongue caresses the word ‘business’ like it’s something obscene, and Arthur sees red at the innuendo. His father’s dead, and she won’t even show respect now. He wants to hit her, but he knows if he starts hitting something right now, he won’t stop.  
  
“He’d never do business to you, not after what you tried to do?”  
  
“A little fraud and espionage are all par for the course when you’re as rich as Uther Pendragon. He never had the moral standards you thought, you know. He was as mercenary as the rest of us.”  
  
“Don’t talk about him like that.” Arthur’s not an idiot. He knows his father wasn’t perfect. He’s been realising it more and more ever since, well, ever since Merlin really. But he wasn’t  _corrupt_ , he tried to do the right thing.  
  
“Sorry, I forgot what a little Daddy’s boy you were.”  
  
“So,” Arthur says again, “are you going to tell me what you were there for, or not?”  
  
“Like I said, I was there to do business,” Catrina frowned. “I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re thinking. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Arthur,” Merlin said quietly from behind them. “I don’t think she did it, perhaps we should just go.”  
  
“What, have you  _read her mind_?” he asked. “Can you do that? Slip into people’s minds and find out what they’re thinking?”  
  
“No.” Merlin’s hand came to rest on Arthur’s bicep, just in his line of vision. It was warm and strangely nonintrusive, and it made him relax his hold on Catrina, though he didn’t let her go. “I’m just not sure you want to hear what she has to say.”  
  
“I want to find who killed my father,” Arthur said. “I need to know, Merlin.”  
  
“Merlin,” Gwaine called from the table. “He’s a big boy, I’m sure he can take it.”  
  
Arthur had the uncomfortable feeling of being left out of the loop again. The other two seemed to already know what Catrina was going to say and they seemed to know that he wasn’t going to like it.  
  
“What did you mean about him being the golden goose?” he asked.  
  
“Well, I suppose there’s no point in keeping it secret now he’s dead,” Catrina said, with an air of unconcern that just served to raise Arthur’s temperature to boiling point. “Uther was paying me, a nice little monthly allowance, in return I kept quiet about some of his less… legal activities in the Department. It’s amazing the sort of things a man will tell you in bed.”  
  
Arthur felt sick. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep himself under control, but the smug look on her face was almost too much.  
  
“My father never broke the law,” he said.  
  
“It’s amazing what children will never know about their parents,” Catrina said. “Your father’s been establishing a private collection for years.”  
  
“What sort of a collection?” Merlin asked.   
  
“Magical artefacts,” Catrina told them. “All those little items that he’s been supposedly reporting to the crown and keeping in the vaults under the headquarters. Well, he hasn’t. There’s a hidden safe in his flat with quite a nice little selection in it. And there’s all sorts of paperwork that just goes missing.”  
  
“I don’t believe you,” Arthur growled.  
  
“Your belief has no control over whether it’s true or not,” Catrina said, shrugging as much as she could with Arthur holding her against the wall. “But Daddy had his own agenda. Why do you think he hunted down magic users all these years?”  
  
“To protect the British people,” Arthur said, though it came out sounding far more like a question than he would have liked.  
  
“So naïve,” Catrina said. “He was looking for something. I don’t know what, but he was definitely looking for something.”  
  
“Did he find it?” Gwaine asked.  
  
“Maybe,” Catrina shrugged. “He never told me if he did. But then, after our divorce, why would he?”  
  
She looked between the three of them.   
  
“So, as you can see. Your father was worth far more to me alive than dead. If I wanted to kill someone it would be your little warlock here,” she glared at Merlin. “If he hadn’t interfered then I might have…”  
  
What she might have done was cut off when Arthur punched her in the face. He didn’t even know he was doing it until it was already done. She reeled back against the wall and Arthur let her go in shock. Merlin had stepped forward and he could see the expression of shock on his face in the corner of his eye.  
  
“I’m not the only one who was there that night,” Catrina said. “And I’m the least of your worries.”  
  
Arthur looked at her, refusing to feel guilty for the mark on her face.  
  
“Who else?” he asked.  
  
“Someone I’d avoid if I were you,” Catrina said.  
  
“Who?” Merlin asked, stepping forwards again. His hand was half raised and Arthur saw Catrina’s eyes dart to it in alarm.   
  
“An old friend of yours, I believe,” Catrina said. “Nimueh.”  
  
Merlin’s face blanched, Arthur could see the blood drain out of it as though someone had pulled the plug, and Merlin was pale on a good day.  
  
“What was she doing there?”   
  
“I saw her walking out just before your handsome prince here tried to jump under my car,” Catrina said. “She looked angry. I didn’t want to talk to her in that mood.”  
  
There was a sound from the front of the house: a car pulling into the drive.  
  
“That’ll be Jonas,” Catrina told them.  
  
“If you’re lying,” Arthur said, putting as much threat into his voice as he could. She just smiled.   
  
“Run along,” she told him. “You’ve got better things to do.”  
  
It was Gwaine who pulled both him and Merlin from the room with firm tugs to their shoulders, and they made it out through the back fence again and to their car, Arthur trying to decide what it was he was supposed to feel.  
  
“My father,” he started as Gwaine turned the key in the ignition.  
  
“Your father,” Gwaine echoed. “Whatever else he was, he was your father. Whatever she said, that doesn’t stop that from being true. He was the man you knew, but not  _just_  that man.”  
  
Arthur looked at Gwaine’s profile in astonishment, nodding.   
  
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s just… I thought…”  
  
“We should never look too carefully at our parents,” Gwaine said. “Believe me. It ends badly.”  
  
Arthur sort of wanted to ask what that meant, but there was a tight tone to Gwaine’s voice that he’d never heard before and that was enough warning. This topic was off limits and Gwaine had said all he wanted to on the subject. So Arthur changed subject as quickly as he could.  
  
“So,” he said turning round to look at Merlin in the back seat, who looked like Christmas had been stolen. “Nimueh.”  
  
“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go after her,” Merlin said softly.  
  
“Where is she?” Arthur asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” Merlin admitted. “But I can find out. I know some people who might know some people.”  
  
“A magical underground grapevine,” Arthur said. “Why am I not reassured?”  
  
“Most magic users aren’t like her,” Merlin said. “Most magic users aren’t like the ones you come across back in the Department. Most of us just keep our heads down and try not to get noticed. Life’s difficult enough without drawing attention to yourself. But it’s nice, to know other people like you, to know you’re not going mad.”  
  
Arthur had never thought about that before: how people learnt that they had magic. He had always imagined that they sought it out. But that couldn’t be right, could it? What would it be like to realise that you were actually a freak? What would you think if things just started  _happening_  around you? Had Merlin been through that? Had Merlin thought that he was going mad?  
  
Asking a question like that would assume a relationship with Merlin that he had forfeited years ago, though.   
  
“Okay, so what’s our next move?”  
  
“My house again,” Merlin said. “I’ll make some calls and we can have lunch. Then… then I’ll go and talk to Nimueh.”  
  
“Then  _we’ll_  go and talk to Nimueh,” Gwaine corrected. Merlin didn’t answer.  
  
*  
  
NImueh’s house was far from what Arthur had imagined from the evil sorceress Merlin’s vague descriptions had depicted. It was a normal suburban house, complete with net curtains and laminate flooring.  
  
It was also quiet, eerily so. There was an unnatural hush over the place.  
  
“Shouldn’t there be birds… or next door’s music, or something?” Arthur asked, as they got out of the car in the driveway (Merlin had laughed when he suggested approaching the building like they had Catrina’s – ‘she’ll know,’ he’d said ‘she always knows’ , and Arthur was carefully not asking about that.)  
  
“Dark magic,” Merlin said, sniffing a little at the air and shivering. “You can always feel it when this much has been used.” Arthur felt a strange tingling sensation up his spine at those words. He wasn’t sure if he was ‘feeling’ the magic like Merlin seemed to be, or if it was just the way Merlin’s voice sounded hollow, and a little frightened.  
  
“We’ve faced dark magic before,” Arthur said, setting his shoulders.   
  
“It never felt like this,” Gwaine commented.   
  
“It was never this powerful,” Merlin agreed. “This is… serious.”  
  
“So Nimueh might be behind those doors, cooking up something truly horrendous to throw at us?” Gwaine asked. “Nice to know.”  
  
Arthur looked at the ordinary front door.  
  
“I don’t think she wants to kill us,” Merlin said with a shrug. “Uther yes, but she never really tried to kill  _us_.”  
  
“She’s tried to kill my father before?” Arthur asked. Merlin winced.  
  
“Only once or twice.”  
  
“Another thing you didn’t think I needed to know.”  
  
“If I’d told you then you would have done something stupid,” Merlin said with a tired shrug. “I really didn’t feel like working through that with you.”  
  
“I would have arrested her and taken her to the detention centre,” Arthur said, growling. He didn’t know why, he didn’t think that magic automatically gave people super-hearing, but he was mostly whispering.  
  
“Like I said,” Merlin said with a shrug.  
  
“So, potential black magic wielding murderous person,” Gwaine interrupted, before Arthur could ask how  _following procedure_  and  _putting a dangerous criminal behind bars_  constituted ‘something stupid’. “How do you two want to handle this? I was thinking we’d try a frontal attack.”  
  
“You want to knock on the evil sorceress’s front door?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Precisely,” Gwaine agreed. “When dealing with people who could reduce you to charred cinders with a flick of their hand, I find it’s always a good idea to be polite.”  
  
“If Arthur thought that, then he’d be treating me with a lot more respect,” Merlin said a little suddenly. Arthur opened his mouth to protest but then the words caught in his throat as he realised what Merlin was implying. He wasn’t just admitting to having magic, he was admitting to having enough magic to kill Arthur where he stood without even raising a sweat.  
  
Arthur stared at one of Merlin’s over-large ears for a long moment, thoughts catching and then swirling away. There was one, determined, but buried right at the back which started with ‘what if…’ and continued on a path that made Arthur want to throw up.  
  
What if… he’d run to the very person that he was trying to find. Merlin certainly had motive, and if he was as powerful as Gwaine and he seemed to think he was, then he had more than the capability. And Arthur had gone running to him, like a lamb to the-  
  
Merlin turned to him, noticing him staring, and grinned a little hesitantly. He looked like an idiot, a genuine, lovely, idiot.  
  
But he’d lied about the magic.  
  
Arthur turned away, unable to return the smile with even a slight curve of his own lips, and he found himself staring right at Gwaine, who looked far too perceptive for Arthur’s peace of mind. There was a hard look in his eyes, and Arthur only managed to hold his gaze by remembering a time when he had given the orders in this… relationship, whatever it was.  
  
“Fine,” Merlin said, when the silence stretched among them for too long. “Knocking on the door it is.”  
  
So they knocked and then they knocked again for good measure, very loudly. Arthur had perfected the art of obnoxious knocking. It had been part of his passive aggressive teenage rebellion.  
  
No one answered.  
  
Merlin’s mouth was twisted in concern and Arthur felt a slight flip of jealousy in his heart. Who was this Nimueh anyway? How did Merlin know her? He pushed the thought and the feeling down, yelling inwardly at himself. In the same five minutes he could mentally accuse Merlin of murdering his father and be jealous of him. His head was a mess.   
  
“There’s something wrong,” Merlin said after another moment. “The magic residue, and her not answering. Something feels off.”  
  
“I’d offer to break the door down, but you’ve got the breaking part of our breaking and entering career down,” Gwaine said. Merlin managed a half smile, but he was still distracted, looking into the middle distance and seeing something that Arthur couldn’t. He waved a hand at the lock and Arthur could hear the click as the pins fell into place.  
  
“Wait here,” Merlin said. Arthur opened his eyes to say something about not being a civilian, but Merlin’s eyes were glowing golden. He remembered that here, he really was the civilian. This was Merlin’s territory and there was nothing he could do to help him. So he nodded and kept his thoughts to himself, watching Gwaine do the same.  
  
Merlin walked in, and Arthur waited. He pushed open the first door he came to,  
  
“Shit,” Merlin said. Arthur could only see his back, but the slump of his shoulders told all the story that Arthur needed to know.  
  
Gwaine squeezed past to lean around Merlin and look in.  
  
“Now I'm wishing I hadn't eaten breakfast," he said, grimacing as he turned back to Arthur. "Apparently someone wanted to redecorate."  
  
"NImueh?” Arthur asked. He was almost grateful that Gwaine and Merlin were blocking the doorway now. He already knew what they were looking at; he'd seen it before, after all.   
  
“That depends on whether you’re asking if she’s the decorator or the decoration,” Gwaine said. Merlin elbowed him, looking a little sick. “The place is a tip," Gwaine commented, Merlin apparently lost for words, still staring at something Arthur couldn't see.   
  
“That happens when someone’s exploded,” Arthur said. Gwaine looked back at him, obviously realising that Arthur knew exactly what they were looking at.  
  
“I don’t mean like that,” Gwaine said. “I mean the actual room. The drawers have been turfed out. There’s not a single book still on the shelves.” He paused. “Come in and close the door,” he said, “you really don’t want one of the neighbours noticing you here. Not with this.”  
  
Arthur stepped inside and closed the door.  
  
“They must have been looking for something,” Arthur said. Merlin turned to look at him.  
  
“What?" Gwaine asked. He was watching Arthur more shrewdly than Arthur would have ever believed him capable of, and Arthur deliberately met his gaze, defiant.   
  
"Whatever it is, we should see if we can find something about it,” Arthur said. Gwaine continued just  _staring_  at him. “Just because someone's looked for something doesn't mean they found it."  
  
“Firstly, if we don’t know what we’re looking for in the first place, then it’s unlikely we’ll find it, even if who ever was here first overlooked it. Secondly, it's a mess in there," Gwaine said. His voice was almost gentle, like he knew exactly what was going through Arthur's mind. "And this time I do mean Nimueh. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience."  
  
“I’m not going to faint at the sight of a little blood," Arthur assured him, straightening. He barged past and stepped around Merlin into the living room.  
  
It had once been a nice room, in a grandparently sort of way. There were pictures on the mantelpiece of people who looked entirely normal. Happy smiling couples, a selection of young women who looked about seventeen. One of them even looked familiar. There wasn't a single picture that wasn't stained red.   
  
Nimueh had been sitting in the armchair when whoever it was had killed her, and some of her body was still there, but splattered out like a brilliant red butterfly. Arthur wanted to throw up, run away and just  _hide_  somewhere. His brain flashed back to his father, almost identical, and the nausea rose again.   
  
He should move, should step forward or back, should make a comment to Merlin and Gwaine to show that he wasn’t  _scared_  by this. But his mouth wouldn’t open and his tongue felt stiff and heavy and too big for his mouth. His feet were rooted to the spot.  
  
He found himself staring at a picture on top of the television, Two girls sitting next to each other on the steps of some ruined castle. They each had an arm slung over the other’s shoulders and they were grinning at the camera. One dark haired, one blonde and both about thirteen. From what little was left of Nimueh’s body, he could tell that the dark-haired girl was her, he didn’t know her companion, though she looked familiar. Like someone from a memory of a dream. She was pale, blonde and beautiful, but her legs were immersed in the sticky red of blood.  
  
“Arthur." Merlin's voice was soft and barely there, like he was scared to speak to Arthur too loudly in case he'd take fright and run away, or break, perhaps. But it was the impetus Arthur needed.  
  
“Well come on  _Merlin_ ,” he said, “can’t your magic at least narrow down the search?"  
  
*  
  
Gwaine was right, the search was  _unpleasant_. But it wasn’t the blood, or Nimueh’s dead eyes staring at them that made it so. It was the way they went through her life. Boxes of bills and bank statements. Shelves of souvenir tat from holidays that she must have been on, or heard about. It took hours and then, after all of that, Arthur sat on the stairs and gazed sightlessly at the front door. They still hadn't found anything that shouted ‘I’m suspicious and magical’. Arthur gave up. This was too much, too far.  
  
“You okay?” Gwaine asked from the top of the stairs, making Arthur jump a little. He hadn’t heard the man coming.  
  
“I’m fine,” Arthur told him, about to stand up as he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him.  
  
“Right, because God forbid that Arthur Pendragon should ever actually feel something."  
  
“Gwaine," Arthur said, wearily, "you need to learn when to keep your mouth shut."  
  
“And perhaps you need to learn when to open yours,” Gwaine told him, squeezing past Arthur down the last few steps before using his knees to budge Arthur over until there was enough space to sit down. “My father had an open casket funeral," he said, as nonchalantly as if he were discussing the weather. "I was five years old and I had nightmares for three straight months. Woke up screaming."  
  
“I’m not five years old,” Arthur pointed out.  
  
“He was still your father." They sat in silence for a moment and Arthur wondered what had happened to Merlin, whether he’d fallen through a wardrobe into Narnia, or whether he had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom. But the seconds drew out and Merlin still didn't appear and Gwaine didn't say anything, or look at him, and Arthur couldn't quite help the pull of the silence.  
  
“It was… like that,” Arthur said, lifting a finger to point at the living room door. “It was just like that."  
  
Out of the corner of his eye he caught Gwaine opening his mouth as though to say something and suddenly he couldn't take it anymore, couldn't talk about it or think about it, couldn't see his father's head staring at him when he closed his eyes, couldn't feel the warmth of his blood against his fingers when he wasn't paying attention. He jerked to his feet abruptly, before he was even conscious that he wanted to move and nodded to himself.  
  
“Right, we should be moving on,” he said, turning to Gwaine and offering his hand. It was a peace offering of sorts and when Gwaine took it, smiling a little, he hoped that it had been accepted. “Where on earth did Merlin get to? That man could get lost in an empty room, I swear to God.”  
  
“Here,” Merlin said, appearing at the top of the stairs like he had been waiting for Arthur and Gwaine to finish their conversation. “I’ll need to put everything back the way it was, though. Don’t want the police to find evidence that you did this one too."  
  
He jogged down the stairs to them and held out his hands. Arthur couldn’t make out the words he muttered, but suddenly the house seemed to be changing of its own volition. Objects moved around to their original positions, doors opened and closed as though moved by unseen winds and the blood that Arthur had barely noticed on the carpet - their footprints - and on the walls and banisters - their fingerprints - removed itself.  
  
“And I don’t think we want anyone to see us sneaking out the back way, either,” Gwaine commented.  
  
“Right, invisibility,” Merlin said, “I can do that."  
  
“I thought you said that it didn’t work,” Arthur commented, remembering that morning’s conversation. Merlin looked a little uncomfortable.  
  
“I said that you couldn’t do it for very long… I should be able to handle getting us out to the road.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Gwaine said, patting him on the arm, “If it goes horribly wrong and he accidentally erases us from existence, at least you won’t be a wanted fugitive anymore.”  
  
Arthur wasn’t reassured.  
  
*  
  
It turned out that Merlin could do invisibility, though Arthur didn’t find the skill a pleasant one.  
  
It was unnerving to feel things without being able to see your hands, or to watch things move themselves as Merlin or Gwaine opened doors. They made it out to the car before Merlin’s spell sputtered and failed.  
  
“So,” Arthur said, when he was sitting in the passenger seat (having shoved Merlin into the back, but been unable to grab the keys from Gwaine) and blessedly visible again. “Who’s next on the list?"  
  
Merlin bit at his lip.  
  
“Look,” he said after a moment. “Nimueh was  _serious_. She knew magic, better than anyone else I ever met. She might have been sort of evil, but she was also sort of powerful, and that someone could do  _that_  to her, without her even putting up a fight…”  
  
“Not to mention the fact that someone killed both her and Uther,” Gwaine said after a moment. “That raises some interesting questions in my mind.”   
  
Arthur stared at him again, his heart suddenly feeling like lead. He hadn’t made the connection, not properly. Someone had killed both Nimueh and Uther, which meant that there was some link between them, and probably not just that Nimueh wanted Uther dead. There was something else, and someone was looking for something.  
  
“Do you think it’s connected to what they were looking for?” Merlin asked, echoing Arthur’s thoughts.”  
  
“My father… his place had been turned over as well,” he said after a moment. He hadn’t really thought about it at the time, his eyes stuck on the thing that had once been Uther Pendragon, but he remembered things cluttering the floor. “I thought maybe they tried to make it look like a robbery.”  
  
“Then why explode them?” Gwaine asked, “why not just whack them around the head with a handy blunt object? No… the death was personal, but the robbery was an actual robbery as well.”  
  
“We need help,” Merlin said. “I don’t know where to start against someone like this.”  
  
“And who do you suggest we ask for help?” Arthur asked. “Santa Claus? The tooth fairy?”  
  
“No,” Merlin said, his face not even cracking a smile at Arthur’s appalling excuse for humour. Usually he liked mocking Arthur’s poor attempts at jokes. “We’re going to see the dragon.”  
  
*

Arthur wasn’t sure what he expected when Merlin said that they were going to see the dragon. It sounded like a euphemism for drug use, or something you’d say while skipping down a yellow brick road.  
  
 _We’re off to see the dragon, the wonderful dragon of..._  
  
Well, there were definitely bricks.  
  
There was a canal, down the way, just an ordinary looking thing, with thick green water and the odd milk bottle floating in it. Merlin led Arthur and Gwaine along the tow path, behind back gardens and blocked off car parks. Arthur wouldn’t have called it picturesque. They passed locks, boats moored to the side and the odd dog walker too, who nodded the abrupt ‘good morning’ which was social convention for strangers in situations like this. Arthur would nod back while Gwaine would actually speak, his mouth twisting into a grin. Merlin, ahead of them, would barely even look up, focussed as he was.  
  
“I hope he’s still here,” he said to himself more than anyone.  
  
“Does he move around a lot, then?” Arthur asked. The dragon was presumably a man then, a man with a bizarre nickname.  
  
“When he feels like it,” Merlin said with a shrug. “He likes to be enigmatic.” Arthur could have said that the dragon wasn’t the only one, but he was skating on thin ice as it was, trailing behind Merlin. His side still hurt, and his legs twinged with pain, but he kept up the fast pace and embraced the aches and the stabs of pain because they were half of what was keeping him going.  
  
There was a bridge up ahead, Victorian red-brick and the worse for wear. Obviously some of the local kids liked to mess around with spray paint down here, because it was covered in angular letters that Arthur couldn’t even begin to read, though he recognised the repetitive patterns of taggers.  
  
“Here,” Merlin said, turning to him. “We’re here.”  
  
“Lovely place,” Gwaine commented, “very welcoming. I especially like the air freshener.” Arthur wrinkled his nose as the same smell assaulted his own nostrils, the scent of urine clogging the air.  
  
“Well, never say I don’t take you anywhere,” Merlin muttered. Arthur opened his mouth to reply, before realising the comment was most likely directed at Gwaine instead, so he turned away, avoiding Merlin’s eyes as they sought his out, staring across the canal to the other side of the bridge, where the arc of the bricks descended into the overgrown weeds and cracked concrete on the other side.  
  
What he saw made him open his mouth in surprise. The graffiti spread on the sides of the bridge had about as much artistic merit as an obscene drawing doodled in the dirt on a white van, but rising out of the water on the other side of the bridge, in dark reds and purples, spread out as though reaching towards them, was one of the most amazing works of spray paint art he had ever seen. It was a dragon, wings open, mouth wide and filled with huge teeth. Every scale seemed to be done individually, and the reflections of light from the water made it look like it was moving, like its eyes, which were staring right out at Arthur, were really glittering.  
  
He took a step back, eyes wide.

“Damn, that’s impressive,” Gwaine said, his voice hushed in awe. “How did they even reach the middle bit?”   
  
Arthur looked again and saw that Gwaine was right, the dragon’s head was at the highest point of the bridge, almost, right over the middle of the canal, where it would be unreachable from either side.  
  
“They must have been on a canal boat.”  
  
“Not exactly,” Merlin said. A smile pulled at one side of his mouth and he reached out a hand to touch the wall closest to them. Arthur frowned in disgust, looking at the slimy wall. But Merlin didn’t even seem to notice, pressing his hand into the bricks and beginning to mutter words.  
  
Arthur would never get used to this – seeing Merlin use magic so  _casually_ , watching his eyes turn gold. There was a difference between knowing a thing and seeing it in action. So he looked away again, but the only other places to look were at Gwaine or at the dragon, and neither of them seemed like a better option. In some sort of compromise he stared instead at the wall next to Merlin’s hand, where some enterprising person who liked to call himself ‘Banez’ or ‘RanFL’ had chosen to leave their mark.  
  
There was a strange ripple in the brickwork, like a low budget special effect, where suddenly the very solid looking bridge seemed to become liquid, and perfect circles undulated out from where Merlin’s hand sat. Arthur didn’t stare in wonder or faint, he’d seen far more than enough magic not to do that, in fact the only thought that crossed his mind was ‘that’s a little cheesy, isn’t it?’  
  
Merlin seemed to be pushing his hand into the stones.  
  
“Sorry, I have to do this to give him his voice. The stones remember you see.” Arthur didn’t see, but the stones seemed to because, after Merlin’s last words had finished leaving his mouth, they lingered on, echoing, echoing. And then those words were joined by others, whispering in, a thousand voices, a thousand different snatches of conversation the bridge had heard.  
  
Arthur stared at Gwaine and was grateful to find his own astonishment mirrored back at him. It was nice to know that he wasn’t alone in this, that Merlin hadn’t shared  _everything_  with Gwaine in the past four years.  
  
It wasn’t a charitable thought, but Arthur was saved from following it up as the echoes became louder and coalesced into one voice, made up of the sounds of a thousand others.  
  
“Warlock,” the voice said, and it echoed still longer.  
  
“Uther Pendragon is dead,” Merlin said.  
  
“All things end,” The dragon replied. Arthur looked up at it, and the image seemed to be moving, wings stretching and contracting, like it was waking up after a long sleep.  
  
“He was murdered,” Merlin said again.  
  
“He had many enemies,” the dragon replied.  
  
“Yes, and one of them killed him and made it look like Arthur did it,” Merlin said. When Arthur darted a glance his way, he looked strained, and slightly angry. “Can you help me or not?”  
  
“The circle will be made,” the dragon said.  
  
“What circle?” Arthur asked. “What are you talking about? Does this have something to do with what they were looking for?”  
  
“Uther Pendragon carried it close to his heart for years, but he never knew what he was carrying. And that was his downfall.”  
  
“Is this supposed to make sense?” Arthur asked. Merlin sent him an exasperated look.  
  
“Sometimes,” he admitted.  
  
“You must seek the circle too, before it is complete,” the dragon said. “Your friend, the cursed one, has been touched by it.”  
  
“Freya?” Merlin asked, his face suddenly shocked. “What’s she got to do with this? She wouldn’t harm anyone.”  
  
“You twist my words, warlock. It was you who summoned me, you who sought me out. You should listen more carefully.”  
  
“I’m listening, and your words were twisted already before I had anything to do with them,” Merlin called back.  
  
“Do you think it’s alive?” Gwaine asked Arthur in a whisper.  
  
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked back, “it’s a painting on a wall.”  
  
“Yeah, but it’s magic, right?” Gwaine looked at the dragon thoughtfully. “If it’s alive, then it can die, and if it can die it can be threatened. We might be able to get it to give us a straight answer.  
  
The paving slabs under their feet suddenly rose up, throwing Gwaine off balance and almost into the canal until Arthur caught him by the back of his jacket. There was a moment where they both teetered on the point of overbalancing, before Arthur managed to drag them both upright again.  
  
“Okay, so not the best idea I’ve ever had,” Gwaine allowed, with a sideways nod of his head, as Arthur pulled him back upright.  
  
“Sadly, it probably was,” Arthur said, earning himself a look of shock, followed by a broad grin.   
  
The dragon roared, or perhaps a train was going over the bridge above. The ground beneath them seemed to shake and the roar went on longer than Arthur could have anticipated.  
  
As it died away, they were left standing, stunned, on the tow path. A little way further down, Arthur could see a woman pushing a buggy. She didn’t look the slightest bit concerned.  
  
“Listen very carefully, warlock,” the dragon said, the paint oozing down the wall, to the other side, the outspread wings folding into its body.  
  
“Why?” Gwaine asked, Arthur, “will he say zis only vonce?” The dragon ignored him.  
  
“The witches are moving. They will take the circle to the centre and if they succeed in that, you will have only one chance.”  
  
“Take the circle to the centre?” Arthur echoed. The words were meaningless, just gobbledegook. He didn’t know why he had expected anything different. This was Merlin after all. Years of lying aside, the man couldn’t be that different from the Merlin he had known before, even with magic. It was a relief, if anything, to know that Merlin was just as clumsy and uniquely useless as ever. The hands that had never quite learnt how to fire a gun and the feet that had always tripped over themselves were still there, which was good to know.  
  
The woman was closer now, and suddenly, as though resetting, the world shuddered back to normal. Merlin was just a man leaning against a wall and the dragon was... gone, replaced by bricks, green moss and the scrawl of people with too much time on their hands.  
  
Arthur stared.  
  
The woman walked past them, barely glancing up – you didn’t question three men hanging around under a bridge – and the wheels of the buggy whirred, one squeaking a little on every turn. That sound seemed ridiculously loud in the sudden quiet, and Arthur almost flinched every time it squealed around.  
  
They waited until she had left, and the echoes of her footsteps had faded before they spoke again.  
  
“Brilliant idea, Merlin,” Arthur said, recovering himself from his shock as best he could. He didn’t want to let on how the hair on his arms was still standing on end, or how he was still working to remember which way was up. “Ask the local artwork for advice.” Merlin made a face that Arthur could quite read.  
  
“At least we got a lead,” Gwaine said, patting Arthur’s shoulder in what was presumably meant to be reassurance, but came across more patronising. Arthur pulled away. A lead? They had nothing except a list of cryptic statements and fear for their lives.  
  
“We did?” Arthur asked, turning on Gwaine. “Was that before or after you almost got yourself thrown in the water? We didn’t even manage to ask it about Nimueh, about what connected her to my father.” Gwaine ignored him.  
  
“Freya,” Gwaine said, turning to Merlin. “That’s the name you said – your friend, the cursed one. We should go and see her.”  
  
Merlin’s face became guarded immediately, and Arthur wanted to snap at him that this wasn’t the time to hold back, that Arthur’s father was dead and Merlin wasn’t going to bloody well keep information from him that could save his life.  
  
But Uther would have locked Merlin up, would have had the officers in the detention centre stick electrodes in his skull, and bars on all the windows. He would have read dry reports where Merlin was referred to as ‘the subject’ and not even  _flinched_  as he read description of procedures that should have been referred to as torture.  
  
Torture. Arthur hadn’t really let himself think the word up until now, although it had swam around the edges of his consciousness. Ever since Merlin had left and Arthur’s life had been shaken to its core, he had tried to avoid the detention centre, skirting the issue where possible. Because every time he had passed its doors, he had thought ‘this is where they’ll put Merlin’.  
  
He had hated Merlin for making him question that, and he had hated Merlin for making him hate himself a little bit every time he walked past those doors. And on the days when he had had to go in, and see the magic users they kept in there, he had gone out on those nights and got a little bit drunker than usual, until Leon had peeled him up off the pavement or the bar top and dragged him home.  
  
So Arthur had no right to demand Merlin put everything on the line, and he bit down on his tongue. Whoever this Freya was, Merlin didn’t want to bring her in to things, which Arthur understood. But still...  
  
“If she can help...” he said, letting the sentence fade, and holding Merlin’s eyes. Merlin could never stop himself from helping someone. Arthur had lost track of the number of times that he had put missions at risk for the sake of some poor hapless bystander. Not that Arthur was any better, but he had always been better equipped, and he had known what he was doing. Merlin had-  
  
Merlin had been leading a double life, and he had never been as helpless as Arthur had imagined; he had always had his magic to fall back on.  
  
It seemed that particular character trait of Merlin’s still ran true. It wasn’t an honourable thing to do. It was a horrible way to play on something he knew would make Merlin break.  
  
“Perhaps I should talk to her alone,” Merlin said, hesitantly.  
  
“No,” Arthur said, immediately, his voice echoed by Gwaine. Merlin’s eyes opened wide, looking at the two of them, in one of their rare moments of agreement.  
  
“She’s not dangerous,” Merlin said, as earnest as Arthur had ever seen him. “But she’s not used to strangers, and if I take Uther Pendragon’s son to her then she might-- It’s not the best idea, alright?”  
  
“She might not be dangerous,” Gwaine said, jumping in before Arthur could, “but someone killed Uther. And I never knew a man quite as paranoid as him. And someone killed that Nimueh woman too, and you said yourself that she was the most powerful magic user you know. If she – if  _Freya_  - is involved, then chances are that whoever got to them knows about her too. If you go alone you’re both in danger.”  
  
“I can take care of myself!”  
  
Arthur opened his mouth to say that Merlin couldn’t have taken care of a stick insect, but he shut it again, once again aware of how out of touch he was. Instead he said, “we’re going,” in a tone that brooked no arguments. “Three of us will be safer than one.”  
  
“My mother used to tell me never to put all my eggs in one basket,” Merlin said, but there was a note of capitulation in his voice.  
  
“If we’re in a basket, then it’s on its way to hell anyway,” Gwaine said. He straightened up. “You won’t leave me to Pendragon’s company will you? We’d kill each other in five minutes.”  
  
Merlin sighed and nodded.  
  
“Fine,” he said jerking his head to indicate that they should walk further down the path. Arthur and Gwaine followed him as they set off again. Merlin’s footsteps were less certain this time, but his speed didn’t drop.  
  
*  
  
Leon was pretending to type up a report on his computer when the call came in, idly tapping nonsense into his keyboard and switching between windows restlessly.  
  
The office was centred round a main screen, which took up all of one wall. It displayed a screen saver most of the time, just the dragon that had become the Department logo, gold on a black background. But every now and then an alert would beep and the screen would switch to a map.  
  
It was rigged up to a magical detector Gaius had designed years before, which could sense surges of magic and locate them. Most people in the office were used to the occasional beeping. Minor incidents only caused a single alert that lasted twenty seconds, and small teams were sent out to investigate, usually lower ranking officers or newbies.  
  
Major alerts were louder and they lasted until someone switched it off manually. Serious incidents were similar to a fire alarm, and the screen would flash red.  
  
This incident was small. It was just big enough to merit a team being sent to the address indicated, but nowhere near enough to warrant a high ranking officer.   
  
But Leon was staring at the screen when the alert pinged and he needed, all of a sudden, to get  _out_. So he stood up, grabbed his jacket, grabbed his jacket and called out to Elyan, who sat at the next desk over.  
  
“We’ll take this one.” Elyan looked up at the screen, only dimly aware that the alert had even gone off. He looked confused, but he didn’t say anything. With Uther dead and Arthur gone, the Department was upside-down. Leon had the sneaking suspicion that Elyan wanted to get out almost as much as he himself did.  
  
They were almost at building security when there were hurried footsteps behind them.  
  
Leon turned to see Cedric, the Internal Affairs agent he had met the night before, standing behind them.  
  
“I’m to go with you,” he said.  
  
“It’s a routine alert,” Elyan said.  
  
“I’m to go with you,” Cedric repeated. He stared at Leon for a moment, and Leon just stared back, fighting to keep his frustration down. “Agent Harris, if you refuse to co-operate…”  
  
“Fine,” Leon said, ignoring the exasperation on Elyan’s face. It looked as though he wasn’t going to be able to get away from this in any way at all. “You can come, but remember that we’re the professionals. You do as we say, you do it immediately and you don’t ask questions. If we say run, then you run.”  
  
“I thought you said that this was routine,” Cedric said, smirking.  
  
“You can never be too careful,” Leon said. He noted the way Cedric’s Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed, and the flash of fear that crossed his features. Good. Let the man be scared. It might actually do him some good.  
  
*  
  
Merlin was silent as he drove, staring straight ahead with a frown, and all of Gwaine’s attempts at conversation faded into nothing, not that he tried much after it was clear that Merlin wasn’t interested in keeping things light anymore.  
  
Arthur had no idea where they were. The silence seemed to sink into him, soaking into his bones and sticking his lips together when he wanted to open them and ask questions he knew he wasn’t supposed to. They drove down country lanes, trees flashing past, and into the outskirts of a city. He watched shops, houses and cars, people walking around, and he turned the dragon’s words around in his head.  
  
The car itself was run down, probably a good fifteen years old, if not older, with the slightly mouldering smell of damp and the accumulated sweat of half a dozen owners. Compared to Arthur’s own car, which he supposed had been strip searched by Internal Affairs by now, it looked about as attractive as a rusty tin can on wheels.  
  
He was going to comment on it, opening his mouth to deliver some scathing comment or other, when he realised that Merlin didn’t have a Department salary anymore, he didn’t have a redundancy package or a pension. The only money he got was from the small bookshop he had managed to find work in, barely over minimum wage, and just about enough to pay his rent, bills and food.  
  
Arthur glanced at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, looking more carefully than he had before, and it was clearer then. His cheekbones, which had always been prominent, were stark, his clothes were good quality, but faded and worn, with tiny holes in, if you looked closely.  
  
He opened his mouth to say something else again, but found that no words came to him. There was no apology he could give for that, he had done what he had to do and Merlin had done… what he had to do.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Gwaine watching him from the backseat. His posture was casual, but his gaze was fixed and definite. Arthur swallowed and looked away, letting the matter drop.  
  
Then, too soon and strangely, also after far too long, Merlin pulled the car into the kerb and turned to them, attempting a smile.  
  
“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily. Usually Arthur would have made a comment about Merlin’s ability to state the obvious, but Merlin was pulled to breaking point right now, caught up in something that Arthur couldn’t quite understand. But he knew what it was to be stretched taut and thin like that. He knew it from the months following Merlin’s escape. The manhunt that followed – led by Arthur, with his father breathing down the back of his neck – had been a nightmare. Arthur had been leading two searches at once, one in public, which he doomed to fail in every way he could (he knew how Merlin’s mind worked, knew which way he’d run, magic or no magic) and one which he kept in private, looking in the hours of the night when he was supposed to be sleeping. He had run himself ragged, and he had felt like he was being pulled apart.  
  
If there had been anything he could have done to stop that, then he would have done. But, with Merlin doing magic in front of half of the bloody Department, Arthur hadn’t had a choice.  
  
There was a strange thud-clang noise and Arthur straightened, his body still on high alert, and he jerked his head around to see a black cat standing gracefully on the bonnet of the car, eying the three of them suspiciously.  
  
Merlin sighed and opened the car door.  
  
“Are you two coming?” he asked as he swung himself out. Arthur left it a moment before he followed, watching Merlin walk around to the front of the car.  
  
They were in the middle of a nondescript sort of street, a row of red-brick terrace houses, facing straight onto the road. They looked like they had seen better days, boarded up windows and graffiti. There were weeds and rubbish. It looked like a street marked for demolition.  
  
Merlin reached out a hand to stroke the cat with one finger. Arthur almost rolled his eyes; Merlin never could resist a furry animal.  
  
“Merlin,” he called. “If you’ve quite finished petting the local wildlife. We do have something rather important we need to be doing.”  
  
“I told you we’re here,” Merlin said, grinning at Arthur widely, suddenly amused. It was his practical joke expression, the one he always wore before doing something to Arthur that Arthur should have seen coming.   
  
“And your friend?” Arthur asked, glancing around the abandoned street. Gwaine looked a little puzzled too, so it wasn’t just him out of the loop. That made Arthur feel a little less lost, but a whole lot more concerned.  
  
“Right here,” Merlin said, still grinning. The cat purred deeply, pushing its head into Merlin’s hand. Arthur stared between Merlin and the animal for a moment, aware that his mouth was hanging open in astonishment.  
  
“First we talk to a wall, and now to a cat?” Arthur asked incredulously. “What exactly is next on our list: a conversation with a dustbin?” Merlin glared at him and the cat looked at him with eyes that seemed to be cutting him down to size. Arthur stared back. He refused to be stared down by a cat.  
  
“Ye of little faith,” Gwaine said, reaching out his own finger to the cat, who sniffed it delicately before turning back to Merlin. Gwaine chuckled under his breath. “Guess she doesn’t like me.” Merlin simply shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. Then the cat leapt down off the bonnet of the car and ran off towards a house, darting through the swinging cat door before any of them could stop it.  
  
“Oh dear,” Arthur said in the silence that followed. He was unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. He was growing tired of cryptic clues and no answers. “Our lead seems to have run off, Merlin. Perhaps she saw a mouse.” Gwaine hissed between his teeth, but didn’t say anything. Arthur can tell that he wanted to stay out of this conversation. Merlin, on the other hand, was growing angrier.  
  
“You’re still the biggest prat I’ve ever met,” he said. He paused, looking betrayed. That was an expression Arthur remembered well. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”  
  
“The only other choices were you or the Princess going off alone,” Gwaine provided, “And in the current circumstances I doubt either of those would have been wise.” Merlin looked like he was about to say something, but he bit his tongue and sighed deeply.  
  
“Come on then,” he said, leading them to the house into which the cat had disappeared. The front door had been red at one point, but now the paint was peeling off in so many places, it looked more like an abstract work of art. There was a weed of some sort growing up from the front step.  
  
As they reached the door, it swung open, revealing a slight, pretty girl, with dark hair and big eyes. She was looking at Merlin with a small smile.  
  
“Hello,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.” The words were barely out of her mouth before Merlin grinned and hugged her fiercely, causing both Arthur and Gwaine to blink in astonishment. “All of you,” she added as Merlin pulled away. She stepped back to let them in. “We need to be quick.”  
  
“Why?” Merlin asked.  
  
“We don’t have long,” she said. But she didn’t elaborate on that.  
  
Arthur walked into the house and almost immediately wished that he hadn’t. It wasn’t a home, not really. The place had clearly been abandoned some years earlier and its current resident was a squatter. He looked at her again and took in the worn, torn jeans, and the ratty jumper that hung from her. So this was Freya, Arthur had to assume, the ‘cursed’ one. He wondered if that had anything to do with her choice of accommodation. He thought about asking for an official introduction, but remembered what Merlin had said about him being Uther Pendragon’s son, so he held his tongue.  
  
The place smelt of mildew and disuse, the walls were stained and the only furniture was broken or constructed from cardboard boxes. Still, the four of them shuffled into what must have once been the living room and sat on what little there was.  
  
“They’re coming for the stones,” Freya said, as though that should mean something to them, rather than just raising half a dozen more questions.  
  
“What stones?” Arthur asked. If that was why his father had died, then that was what he needed to know. Freya turned to him.  
  
“The dragon stones.”  
  
“And they are?” Gwaine prompted.   
  
“They’re a conduit,” Freya went on. She didn’t seem scared, not like Merlin had implied she would. She seemed perfectly at ease, smiling at the three of them, though her sleeves were wrapped around her hands, and when she sat down she curled her knees up to her chest.   
  
“They’re also a legend,” Merlin said. “The dragon stones are just the stuff of fairy tales, aren’t they? Like the holy grail.”  
  
“What makes you think the holy grail isn’t real?” Freya asked, her lips quirking slightly. Merlin smiled back, a secret, shared smile and Arthur’s stomach twisted horribly. The moment passed and Freya continued. “There are lots of things said about them: that they can channel magic into a person, or even redirect life itself, and turn back death.”  
  
“They can raise the dead?” Arthur asked, his mouth falling open. Something slotted into place in his mind. His father, haunted by his mother’s death all these years, had hoarded magical artefacts and he had had one of these stones. Perhaps he had been looking for others. Of all the things that would make him steal from the Department and betray everything he ad worked for, there was only one that Arthur could believe. His father had been looking for a way to reverse death, and he would have gone to any lengths to find it, even magic. “Really?” Freya looked at him and smiled a little sadly.  
  
“That’s what’s said,” she told him. “But no… nothing can do that.”  
  
Arthur felt a wave of sudden sadness pass over him, almost drowning him. He had always seen his father as something untouchable, unknowable and completely solid, like a statue on top of a pedestal. But in that moment he saw him better than perhaps he ever had before, clutching desperately at straws, longing for something impossible, and never able to give up on a broken dream. It was pathetic, in a way, and it cut Arthur to his core. He swallowed the reaction down.  
  
“The other thing you said, channelling magic into a person,” Merlin said, filling Arthur’s silence without even being asked. “They can give an ordinary person magic?”  
  
“Another rumour,” Freya said. She paused, a little hesitantly. “I don’t know if it’s true. But everything I know about them suggests that’s more likely. I don’t know who’s coming for them, but I know that they’re coming. Nimueh had three of them.”  
  
Arthur scowled, leaning backwards on his box and trying to ignore the way it bent worryingly under his weight. They were behind, chasing to catch up, and whoever had killed his father had at least four of the stones already. Out of how many? If there were only five, then Freya was the last person standing. They had to get that stone and use it to find whoever was after it.  
  
“She was one of the most powerful of us and she was ripped apart like she was nothing,” Freya said. She looked lost.  
  
“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” Merlin said with utter conviction. Arthur had to curse whoever had given Merlin such a naïve personality. Freya seemed to be of Arthur’s mind regarding Merlin’s statement, though, because she just smiled sadly.  
  
“I have one of the stones,” she said. “It was given to me a long time ago, to be kept safe, and to mark me. It’s one of twelve, but all of them are needed for the ceremony.”  
  
“So if we have the stone…” Arthur said, his interest caught by the idea. A plan was forming in his mind. He looked up to see whether the others were on the same page as him.  
  
“Then we stop whatever it is they’re planning on doing,” Gwaine said.  
  
“And we force them to come to us,” Arthur said. He couldn’t care less about some person who wanted magic for him or herself, but the chance to drag his father’s murderers into the light – the possibility of laying a trap for them – that was too good to pass up. There was an uncomfortable silence. The others did not seem as eager as he was.  
  
“Yeah, make ourselves living targets,” Gwaine said, “sounds like a brilliant idea.”  
  
“Keeping the stone safe is more important than you can know,” Freya said, cutting off the argument before it began. “Merlin, if the rumours are true then they could suck all of the magic out of the world, all of it.”  
  
Arthur almost asked how that would be a bad thing, years of working on the other side of this divide not quite able to be smothered. But Gwaine caught his eye sharply, like he could see the thought in Arthur’s mind and Arthur bit his tongue.  
  
“There’s something else,” Freya said slowly. “They’re going after the Department.”  
  
“What do you know about the Department?” Arthur asked. He looked at Merlin suspiciously, wondering what he had been saying.   
  
“I was arrested by them seven years ago,” Freya said. “I escaped.” She shot a look out of the corner of her eyes at Merlin and Arthur knew  _exactly_  what she meant by that.  
  
“Of course you did,” he said.   
  
“I heard something, I’m not sure about it, but you need to know.”  
  
“What?” Arthur demanded. “What do I need to know?”  
  
“Three days ago a warlock disappeared,” Freya said. “He had one of the stones too. But his house wasn’t wrecked like the others. I know someone who went to see him – to sort try and find out where he went, but instead of him they came across a witch placing a spell on it, dark magic, powerful. He hid, and heard something about luring the Department there, I don’t know why. It’s supposed to happen today.”  
  
“You think this has something to do with the stones?” Gwaine asked. “Why would they go after the Department? They’ve already got what they want from Uther.”  
  
“The more they throw the Department into chaos, the better,” Arthur said, reaching into his pocket for his mobile phone. “Something powerful would make people suspicious of another magical terrorist organisation. They’d start talking about the Avalon Council again.”  
  
“We got rid of the Avalon Council,” Merlin said. “We took their headquarters, we got all of them.”  
  
“There have been rumours of splinter groups,” Arthur said, “there always are. And if the magic they placed was as powerful as you say, and it killed enough agents, then a state of emergency would be declared in the Department. With my father dead, it would be chaos. They’d be torn between looking for me and looking for the terrorist group, they wouldn’t have the resources or the time to look into anything else.” He turned to Freya.  
  
“What’s the address? I have to warn them.” He found Leon in his phonebook.  
  
“Not on that, you don’t,” Gwaine said, snatching the phone out of his hand. “Do you know nothing about covering your tracks? You should have trashed that hours ago. Why do you even still have it on you?” He tossed the phone to Merlin, who concentrated on it for a second, his eyes flashing gold. Then wisps of smoke began to drift up from it and the stomach turning smell of burning filled the air.  
  
“What are you-?” Arthur demanded.  
  
“Saving your life,” Gwaine said. “You’re on the run now. This is our world.”  
  
“If I don’t contact Leon then  _good people_  are going to die,” Arthur said, glaring at them both as best he could. “Good people who were your friends.”  
  
“Use mine,” Freya said, handing him a phone. “The only people looking for me already know how to find me.” She held out a battered phone and Arthur took it, gratefully. “28 March Road. Don’t let them near it.”  
  
Arthur entered Leon’s number from memory and lifted the phone to his ear, listening to it ring.  
  
*  
28 March Road was in a suburban area, half way down a cul-de-sac. The houses had front garden with clipped green lawns and neat, orderly borders. There were even net curtains. Leon shook his head at how very  _normal_  it looked. The ping was almost definitely nothing, just a kid with some latent ability slamming doors or something.  
  
But they checked these things out for a reason and, with Internal Affairs hanging around in the form of Cedric, Leon wasn’t going to skip out on procedure. He performed the initial sweep of the perimeter, walking around as much of the house as he could. There were no obvious signs of illegal magical activity, no blood lines, runes or sigils. Just a normal house.  
  
Leon's mobile rang when he was heading back to the car, Cedric making Elyan dawdle behind so he could ask him some question. He didn’t recognise the number.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Leon." The voice was almost as familiar as his own, and Leon had almost let the name  _Arthur_  slip past his lips before he remembered the man behind him and half turned just to check that Cedric had no idea that the man he was hunting was on the other end of the phone line.  
  
“Yes," he said as calmly as he could. There were a thousand questions he couldn't ask.  
  
“I didn’t-“ Arthur began.  
  
“I’m aware of that,” Leon cut him off. “We're looking into it." He kept the 'sir' from the end of the sentence, just about.  
  
“Good… good. Thank you," Arthur told him. "I can't tell you where I am, but I'm fine. I'm with... friends.”  
  
“That's good to know," Leon said, selecting his words and his tone carefully, trying to sound as though he had no investment in this conversation at all. Light, he told his voice; still, he told his hands; steady, he told his voice.  
  
“But we've got information," Arthur said. Leon heard another voice on the end of the line, muffled and vaguely petulant sounding. The tone was familiar. “Look. There’s going to be a call out today. 28 March Road. Not far from the office, and nothing major. It’ll be a trap.”  
  
Leon looked up at the building in front of him. Just an ordinary suburban house with a bay window, flowers on the windowsill, though they seemed to be wilting.  
  
“Any idea what kind?” he asked. The other voice came again and Leon’s eyebrows rose as he placed the familiarity. He swallowed, his heart thudding for a few seconds as he realised that this phone call was a tipping point. He drew in a breath and held up a hand, knowing that Elyan would take it as an indication to stop where he was.  
  
“You’re already there, aren’t you?” Arthur asked, before telling the voice in the background to shut up. He swore and Leon’s mind echoed the sentiment. “Get out of there. It’s dark magic, something big. We don’t know what it’s set up to do, but my best bet is that it’ll kill you and anyone you’re with. They want to put the Department in a state of emergency."  
  
“You’re sure?” he asked.  
  
“Certain,” Arthur said.  
  
“And you trust the source of this information?” he asked, knowing that Arthur would hear the rest of that question as well.   
  
There was a pause before Arthur spoke, but when he did his voice was as steady as it had ever been, steadier than Leon had heard it in a while. “Yes.”  
  
“Good. Thanks for the heads up. Pass on my gratitude," he said and, after a pause, "and tell him I say hello."  
  
“I will.”  
  
There were footsteps beside him and Leon turned to see Cedric walking up next to him.   
  
“Why have we stopped?” Cedric asked. Leon gave him a polite ‘wait a second' smile and tried to look as though he was not having an illegal conversation with two fugitives from justice.  
  
“I need to go. Will you be able to keep me updated?” He asked Arthur, keeping his eyes fixed on Cedric all the time.  
  
“I’m not sure. I don't want to put you at any more risk than I have already..." Arthur replied  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” Leon said, aware of Cedric’s eyes boring into the side of his face.   
  
“If I can,” Arthur told him.  
  
“Good. Thanks again.” Leon told him before ending the call.  
  
“Why have we stopped?" Cedric asked again, not waiting for Leon to even get his phone back into his pocket.  
  
“Standard procedure,” Leon told him, aware that Elyan was frowning at him. "We can't just go rushing in. These things can be difficult to predict. We should get the detection equipment from the car. He walked back down the path trying to stop Elyan from asking questions with a hard look.  
  
“And that phone call,” Cedric asked.  
  
“About something unrelated,” Leon told him, trying to make it sound as unimportant as possible.  
  
“Not a personal matter, I hope.”  
  
“No, of course not,” Leon assured him opening the boot and grabbing everything he could possibly find and handing it over to Elyan.   
  
“What’s with the gear?” Elyan asked in a hiss, just low enough that Cedric wouldn’t be able to hear him.  
  
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Leon told him. He pulled on his own body armour, taking a deep breath.   
  
“Who was on the phone?" Elyan asked, insistent.  
  
“Later,” Leon assured him briefly before they closed the boot and Cedric could see them again. The man was staring at the pair of them with suspicion.  
  
“That looks excessive. I thought you said that this was a routine call out,” Cedric commented. “That equipment doesn't look routine."  
  
“And you go on a lot of call outs to magical events, do you?” Elyan asked, deflecting the intense gaze from Leon for a moment. “Why don't you just stay back here where it's safe and let the two of us do our job?"  
  
Cedric retreats, suitably reticent for a man in a suit, Leon thinks a little viciously. And Elyan and Leon approached the door.  
  
“So on a scale of one to ten, how bad a feeling do you have about this?” Elyan asked with forced cheer.  
  
“Remember that rain of frogs in Wales?" Leon asked.  
  
“The ones with the hallucinogenic mucus? Of course – most fun I’ve ever had in Cardiff. Right up to the part with the spiders… Or maybe including that. Why?”  
  
“Worse.” Leon told him. Elyan nodded, suddenly serious. He separated out his own body armour and fastened himself into it. The things were another miracle of the R&D Centre. They somehow grounded the worst of magical blasts, Leon had never asked how. It might have something to do with the symbol on them, or maybe they were made of magical Kevlar. All that really mattered was that they worked. Wearing them meant that most magical blasts didn’t even make you stumble, but if someone was really trying to kill them, then it wouldn't do much more than making them die uncomfortable.  
  
He lifted the portable detector gingerly, wondering what he was going to do about this. There was no reason for him to be worried. If he hadn't had that call from Arthur he would have gone up, knocked on the door and conducted this like any other minor incident. And he probably would have died.  
  
And, according to the official line, he hadn't just received a call from Arthur.   
  
He took a deep breath and pulled the long dagger from his belt. It was something that all agents carried. Guns were well and good, most of the time, but magic interfered with their mechanisms easily. A steel blade was the least vulnerable item they had ever found.  
  
He reached out to touch the tip of the blade to the door and dropped it immediately as the metal corroded to black powder in front of his eyes. He wiped his hand reflexively against his jeans. It felt like it was crawling, like there were insects all over it, crawling backwards and forwards. God... god, he was going to dissolve.  
  
He looked down in panic, but his hand was still there at the end of his arm, as flesh-coloured and solid as ever. He wiped it off again, relief flooding him, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to take his eyes off it.

“Shit,” Elyan said.  
  
“What’s the hold up?” Cedric called out.  
  
“We're calling in back-up,” Elyan said, looking at the remains of the dagger lying on the doorstep. It looked diseased, like the metal had  _rotted_  if that were possible.  
  
“Back up?” Cedric asked. "You said  _routine_. If this is some sort of a-"  
  
“While performing our  _routine_  checks,” Leon said, interrupting him, “we discovered something that was definitely not routine, which would be why the checks are routine in the first place.” He took a deep breath, twitching his fingers. They still felt tingly and itchy, though he assured himself it was all in his head. “We need back-up, which is  _routine_  for this sort of a situation.”  
  
“If you’d touched the door,” Elyan said, under his breath. “How did you know?”   
  
Leon didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he had touched the door. He didn’t want to imagine his own skin blackening like the metal.   
  
“But that would have only taken one person out,” he said to himself, the thought coming suddenly. He grabbed Elyan’s arm and dragged him backwards. Arthur had said ‘and anyone you’re with’. Who would lay a trap like this to only take out one person?  
  
He turned, pushing Elyan around roughly, and ran down the drive.   
  
“ _Behind the car"_  he bellowed at Cedric, who just blinked at him like he was stupid. Leon was dimly aware of a woman walking her dog on the other side of the road stopping to stare at the mad people with the unmarked car. "Get  _down_."  
  
Leon and Elyan hadn't managed to stay alive for this long without being very good at getting the hell out of the way when something screwed itself up (which was fairly often). They managed to grab the outraged Cedric, dive behind the car and signal to the woman to run, Leon flashing a badge that looked very official, but had in fact been a gag gift from the office secret Santa a few years back. It was amazing how often that badge had helped.  
  
Then-  
  
\- there was nothing. Nothing at all. Just silence interspersed with Cedric spluttering about unprofessional conduct and clear breach of policy and common decency.  
  
Leon opened his mouth to tell Cedric that if he wanted to have them fired for saving his arse then he was more than welcome to try, when there was a sickening whine sound, and the world went blue.  
  
The light was eerie, the sort of light that was used in horror films when the ghosts appeared. It shimmered, growing brighter and brighter. The whine rose in pitch and volume until it even drowned out the swear words that were pouring out of all three of their mouths.  
  
Leon watched in horror as the gardens across the street rotted in front of his eyes. Everywhere the light touched was darkening and eroding – tarmac, cars, trees. The whine was suddenly accompanied by the sound of metal screeching as it reached its breaking point. The car at their backs shook and Leon wondered whether it was ever going to end, whether the three of them might sit there until the car rotted away completely and then the light could reach them too. But, just as the volume reached levels that had Leon trying to claw his ears off and he could see the blue right through his eyelids, it all stopped in a dizzying split second, leaving them in silence and darkness. Leon wondered for a strange moment whether he was dead, but the sensation of air filling his lungs as he breathed in, thick with the bitter smell of dark magic, kicked him out of that thought.  
  
It was like the aftermath of an explosion – and Leon had been near to a few of those in his time – his ears were still full of the noise, even as an afterimage of the sound, and his eyes saw the world as though he was wearing sunglasses, the retina unable to cope with the overwhelming light that had come from before.  
  
After reassuring himself that he was still alive, he reached out to pat Elyan on the arm, and was reassured to feel a confirming tap on his forearm in return.  
  
He reached out for Cedric and his arm was whacked away, which at least proved that the man was still alive.  
  
Leon sat there for a long second, breathing in and out, revelling in the fact that his lungs still worked, and waited for someone to decide what to do next.  
  
The feeling of elated relief lasted right up until he realised that the person who was supposed to make that decision was him.   
  
In the past it had always been Arthur who had picked them up after something had shaken them down to the core. It had always been Arthur who stood up first, or stuck his head round the edge of the building to see if their opponents were still standing. Leon had never even really thought about how insane the man had been until he realised that he was about to stand up and poke his head out from the only definite source of protection he had.  
  
It was possible that whatever  _that_  had been, it was activated by movement. It was possible that there were a million new horrible things waiting for him.  
  
But he levered himself up anyway, trying to look as casual as Arthur always had, and reminding himself that at least, if he died, Elyan would have a little longer to work out a plan.  
  
He couldn’t quite keep his shoulders from tensing when he straightened, and the back of his neck had that horrible prickling feeling of being watched, but when he turned around there was nothing there but the house, and utter devastation.  
  
“Well,” he said, his voice shaking. Though considering it sounded distant and echoey to him, the others probably couldn’t even hear it. "I guess we're walking back."  
  
He left Elyan to deal with the gibbering Cedric. When he walked around the front of the car, he could see that half of it was gone. It looked like a cut-away drawing from a ‘how stuff works’ book, apart from the fact that, rather than clean lines, all the edges were ragged and black.  
  
“Fuck…” he said with tremendous feeling, as he realised that, had the blue light lasted a few more seconds, then the last bit of the roof, the part that had left the passenger door window in shadow, would have been gone, leaving his head to the tender mercies of whatever that magic was.  
  
His knees wanted to buckle, but he forced them to straighten and walked back to the other side where Elyan was dragging Cedric to his feet and patting him down.  
  
"Well," Elyan said, his cheer sounding forced and brittle. "I'm awake now."  
  
Leon laughed, the sensation a release of the energy that was piling up behind his mouth and in his limbs. Elyan joined him after a second, chuckling together until they couldn’t breathe properly for peals of relieved laughter. Cedric stared at them in disbelief, his mouth working in horrified fish circles.  
  
They stayed like that until the back-up Elyan had remembered to ring for while Leon was checking the damage, came hurtling down the street and they were pulled back out of the radius of destruction, checked over by medics and told that they were lucky sons-of-bitches.  
  
Leon was pounded on the back by Elyan repeatedly, who opened his mouth to tell everyone how he'd saved his life. Leon started to tell him to shut up when a car drew up that Leon recognised. The car Uther had always used for work. He straightened up, astonished, wondering for a second whether the past few days had been a hideous magic-induced dream, but when it pulled up the door opened and a woman stepped out, long blonde hair falling to her shoulders. She was beautiful in a way which made Leon wish that he had five inches of bulletproof glass between him and her. She headed towards him without even pausing.  
  
“Morgause Treherne,” she said, holding out a hand to him. “I’ve been asked to step in to the breach while the Pendragon situation is sorted out.”  
  
“Agent Leon Harris," he offered.  
  
“Yes, I know," she said. There was something about her, Leon could feel it prickling up his spine and he breathed in through his nose, deliberately, trying not to let it show as he straightened his back. There was a metallic tinge to the air that clung to the insides of his nostrils. Magic. It might have just been from the curse, though. It might have… he inhaled again, more carefully, but the scent hadn’t changed. And he could remember having smelt the magic while the house was glowing; it had been bitter, acrid. But now it was different, less bitter, and softer. Morgause was smiling serenely still, and Leon let his face take on the familiar blank expression of someone greeting a superior. “I heard you had a close call."  
  
“Yes ma’am."  
  
“Well, I’m glad that you’re all okay. I expect a report on my desk as soon as you’ve had a chance.”  
  
“Yes ma’am.”  
  
“I don’t expect you to like me, Agent Harris. In fact, given everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours, I’d be surprised if you did,” she told him. “We're all in difficult positions right now. We just need to get on with the job at hand."  
  
The only thing Leon could think was the word ‘Magic’ again and again, like there was a mouse or a hamster running around inside his brain squeaking it at him angrily. And all he could feel, other than that curious numbness of not quite having realised he was still alive, was a feeling of utter terror that this was all getting out of hand. He wished for the two millionth time that day that Arthur was standing next to him. He hated getting involved in the political side.  
  
“Yes ma’am,” he said. At least those were words he didn’t have to think about.  
  
*  
  
“They tried to kill my men," Arthur growled, pacing the floor. "They are trying  _right now_  to kill my men.  _My men_." It was easier to think about that than to think that maybe Leon was already dead somewhere.  
  
“Yes,” Merlin said, unhelpfully, from his position on the kitchen counter.  
  
“What would  _you_  know about it?” Arthur rounded on him, glaring.  
  
“Arthur,” Gwaine’s voice was a low warning that Arthur was the only one there alone in the world right now. That rubbed him up the wrong way even further.   
  
“And you!” he said, rounding on Gwaine instead, who smirked at him.  _Smirked!_  Leon and god knew who else were walking into the biggest fucking trap of their lives and Gwaine, who had used to call them friends, was  _smirking_  about it. “Why are you even here? We all know your idea of loyalty is buying a man a drink and ditching him for the hangover.”  
  
Merlin protested somewhere to the side, but Arthur was in full flow now. All he could hear was the rushing in his ears and his own words spitting out of his mouth like dragon fire.  
  
“You never were there for the clean-up. Why should you give a damn about them now when you never did before."  
  
“I care,” Gwaine said, calm and level.  
  
“You care. Really, Gwaine? You ran off - you left them to do this alone and you bloody know it. You fucking  _coward_!" Arthur swung, wildly. His fist barely connected with Gwaine's shoulder as the other man ducked out of the way. Gwaine grabbed for him and pushed him forward into the wall Arthur's hip bones were digging right into it and Arthur was forced to push his elbow backwards until it connected with flesh and the pressure against his back released.  
  
They went for each other, fists and knees. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t skilled and it had none of the discipline Arthur had been studying in from the moment he could walk. It was brutal. Arthur got a fist in his face, his teeth biting in to the soft flesh of the inside of his lips. It reminded him of scraps he had been in as a child, rolling around on the playground in defence of a football that someone else had already run off with.   
  
Gwaine's shoulder collided with his stomach and sent them both crashing to the floor in a flail of arms and legs.  
  
Then suddenly Arthur felt something tugging on the back of his shirt, dragging him away, and saw Gwaine being pulled in the opposite direction. Freya was watching them, looking nervous, Merlin stood next to her, face tight with anger. He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. As he did it, Arthur could feel the wounds from the night before again, aching, and the places where the bruises from Gwaine’s fists would show in a few hours.  
  
“Fine, fine,” Merlin said with a tired voice. Arthur glanced at him and saw his hands extended, on reaching to each side, towards Arthur and Gwaine. His eyes were golden. “We get it. You both want to do something. Neither of you can. Now if you could grow up for a minute and use your brains rather than trying to knock them out of each other, then maybe we might actually be able to come up with a plan."  
  
“I would have won,” Gwaine said.  
  
“In your dreams.”  
  
“ _Neither of you won!_ " Merlin yelled. The sudden noise made both of them look towards him like naughty schoolboys. "If I hadn't separated you, the only thing that would have happened is that the two of your would have wrecked Freya’s house, and pissed off one of our few allies.”  
  
“Everything alright?” Freya asked a little uncertainly  
  
“I’ve got it under control,” Merlin assured her.  
  
“Okay,” she told them with a small worried smile.  
  
  
“Now,” Merlin said, letting his hands drop. Arthur slumped as the force that had been holding him back disappeared. “Are you going to play nicely together, or do I have to put you in separate rooms?"  
  
Arthur offered a reluctant hand, which Gwaine took, just as reluctantly. He tightened his hand as much as he dared, and received the same treatment in return.  
  
“Great. Then perhaps we could get back to the problem at hand,” Merlin suggested. “We can’t do anything more about Leon. I’m sorry Arthur. But he’ll get through it, he’s smart and he’s good at his job.” Arthur nodded. “Freya, we need the stone. If we have it, then maybe they won’t come after you. You’ll be safer, and we can try to work out exactly what’s going on.”  
  
“I’ll go and get it,” she said, looking for a long moment at Merlin. “You have to stop them from getting it.”  
  
“I’ll come with you,” Gwaine volunteered, looking between Merlin and Arthur with the disconcerting shrewdness that he seemed to have developed in the last four years. He stood up, and gently led Freya out of the room with an arm around her shoulders before Merlin or Arthur could say anything.  
  
Then it was just Arthur and Merlin. Awkwardness fell as the door closed behind the other two. It was the first time, really, that they had been alone since Arthur had fallen on top of Merlin on his doorstep and Arthur, who had resented Gwaine’s presence for the entire time, suddenly wished that he would come back.  
  
He glanced at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, and found Merlin looking back at him. Their eyes caught and Arthur couldn’t tear his gaze away.  
  
The word sorry hovered behind his teeth. But accusations and anger hovered just as close, and he seesawed between the two, unable to let either come out.  
  
The silence just grew thicker, punctuated by the sounds of Freya and Gwaine moving about.  
  
There was a sound outside, the sound of boots on tarmac.  
  
There was a knock at the door.  
  
Merlin and he shared a startled look.  
  
“Jehovah’s Witnesses?” Merlin suggested.  
  
“With our luck?” Arthur shot back. He was already on his feet, grabbing Merlin’s arm and pulling him up. “Is there a back way?”  
  
“Gwaine and Freya are upstairs,” Merlin said.  
  
“Not what I was asking,” Arthur told him. “Is there a back way?”  
  
“They’ve got the stone.” Merlin said, looking at the stairs. Arthur held him in place.  
  
“Back way?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Use it,” Arthur told him. Merlin stared, mouth falling open, and rebellion chasing across his face.  
  
“I’m not leaving any of you.”  
  
“I’ll get Gwaine, Freya and the stone,” Arthur told him. “We’ll be fine.”  
  
“I’m not-“ Merlin was cut off by the sound of shouting and the door splintering inwards.  
  
“Well,” Arthur said, releasing Merlin and turning towards the noise, “at least none of us has exploded yet.”  
  
There were people piling into the house, burly men dressed in almost identical bland clothes. They carried guns and, when one of them rounded the door to find Arthur and Merlin, Arthur looked into his eyes and saw that they were glazed and deadened.  
  
“Thrall,” Merlin said. The word didn’t mean a lot to Arthur, but the next one did. “Duck.”  
  
Arthur had been in enough fights in his life that there were some situations and words he responded to automatically. There were many variations on ‘duck’ hardwired into him and he didn’t even need to think before he reacted, hitting the floor.  
  
Bullets flew over them and then they bounced away, deflected off an invisible shield.  
  
“Better than Kevlar,” Merlin said as they crawled for the door to the hallway. “We have to get to Gwaine and Freya.”  
  
“How long can you keep up that shield?” Arthur asked.  
  
“A few minutes, as long as there aren’t too many…” They came into the hall and were confronted by the sight of over a dozen pairs of booted feet and looked up into the muzzles of just as many guns.  
  
“How about that many?” Arthur asked, not optimistic.   
  
“Might be pushing it,” Merlin said.  
  
“Tactical retreat,” Arthur decided. Merlin looked completely scandalised.  
  
“But the others,” Merlin insisted.  
  
“Come on,” Gwaine’s voice cut through. They looked up to see him standing behind them. Arthur didn’t ask how he’d got there, but dragged Merlin to his feet and hauled him back towards Gwaine.  
  
“We can’t just  _go_ ,” Merlin protested. Arthur wanted to agree with him. The soldiers, thralls, whatever they were, had turned their attention to the stairs. Arthur followed their gaze to see Freya standing at the top.  
  
“Can’t you… burn them up or something?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Or stop time,” Gwaine suggested, “that would be useful.”  
  
“Not with this much interference,” Merlin said, sounding a little helpless. “They’re thralls – they’re not people any more, they’re possessions – of whoever sent them. They’re practically soaked in magic, and it’s interfering with mine. I can’t do anything that affects them.”  
  
“That’s exceptionally useless,” Arthur commented. He had a feeling that their grace period was drying up. The Thralls seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion. “No invisibility?”  
  
“Not at the same time as the shield.”  
  
Arthur contemplated that for a moment. If they turned invisible then it was entirely possible that the Thralls would just shoot indiscriminately and they’d been dead in seconds.  
  
“Merlin,” Freya said. Merlin’s attention snapped to her. “Go.”  
  
“I can’t just leave you-“ Merlin started.  
  
“We can’t help her,” Gwaine said. It sounded as though the words hurt him to say, and Arthur could understand that. She seemed nice, as inadequate as that was.  
  
“I can take care of myself,” Freya said. There was a sound unlike anything Arthur had ever heard before. If he had had to label it, he would have put it something between Velcro and the squelch of raw meat, and suddenly Freya wasn’t standing at the top of the stairs anymore, instead there was a huge black panther. He stared.  
  
Gwaine grabbed them both as the Thralls opened fire, taking their shoulders and taking advantage of the fact that every gun was trained on the huge black panther to make their escape.  
  
*

“Why aren’t they following us?” Arthur asked as they scrambled into the car.  
  
“They’re thralls,” Merlin said, as though that explained everything.  
  
“Meaning?”  
  
“They follow orders. And that’s all they do. They weren’t sent there for us, they were sent there for the stone and Freya. As long as we’re not in their way, then we won’t be part of their plan.”  
  
“That’s good.”  
  
“We’ll still have to ditch the car,” Merlin said. “They’ll report back, and they’ll have the number plate. We’re only safe until they get back to whoever’s controlling them, then we’re next on the list.”  
  
“They had guns,” Gwaine said.  
  
“Yes,” Arthur agreed, looking at Gwaine curiously. He wasn’t the sort of person to go into shock. “I noticed that while they were  _shooting_  at me.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant,” Gwaine said. “I meant that  _they had guns_. Guns kill people with bullets, they don’t rip them apart and paint their blood on the ceiling. Could one of the thralls be using that kind of magic?”  
  
“No,” Merlin said with certainty. “They’re just drones. Magic requires a certain amount of independence.”  
  
“Then they weren’t the people who went after Nimueh,” Gwaine said.  
  
“Or my father,” Arthur added. He frowned. “But why send the thralls after Freya and go after the other two personally?”  
  
“The girl could change into a panther,” Gwaine pointed out. “I wouldn’t want to go up against that.”  
  
“Nimueh could kill you with a smile,” Merlin said. “Compared to her, Freya’s… Freya’s an easy target.” Arthur watched him swallow. “It’s got to be something else.”  
  
“Maybe they’re busy,” Gwaine suggested.  
  
“Busy? Doing what?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Who knows. But I’m willing to bet it’s not good.”  
  
*  
  
“I understand the complications, Sir,” Morgause Treherne was saying as Gwen knocked on the open door of Uther’s office. “But this was a targeted trap.” She waved Gwen in. “If the agents involved had been slightly slower to act, then there wouldn’t be anything left of them. You appointed me because I know more about this department than anyone else you could have appointed. The last time something like this happened, the Avalon Council was behind it.”  
  
Gwen walked up to the desk and dropped the papers onto it with a smile. Morgause smiled back blankly.  
  
“It’s precisely because Uther Pendragon’s dead that I think this is so important. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Either whoever killed him, his son or whoever else it turns out to be, was working with some other organisation, or news of his death has reached people who are taking advantage of the situation. It’s imperative that we take action to prevent this from becoming a national crisis. I want to declare a state of emergency.  
  
“Yes, sir, I know what that will mean. But I need access to those resources if I’m going to control this situation.” Morgause lifted a hand to gesture Gwen back from the door.  
  
“Yes, sir, I understand.  
  
“Of course,” There was a pause and Morgause hung up. She looked up at Gwen, frowning.  
  
“The events of today are unprecedented,” Morgause said. “One hell of a first day, hm?” Gwen nodded.  
  
“Did you want something?”  
  
“There are forms I need to sign to declare a state of emergency.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Gwen agreed.  
  
“Could you get them for me? I’m afraid there are no other options.”  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
Gwen reached the door when Morgause’s mobile phone rang. She snatched it up.  
  
“Tell me you have good news…  
  
“Who?”  
  
Gwen hurried out of the door and shut it behind her, taking a deep breath.  
  
A state of emergency. There hadn’t been one of those in all the time she had worked at the Department. There were rumours that there had only ever been one in the whole history of the Department, after the death of Ygraine Pendragon. If Morgause was declaring a state of emergency, then things were more serious than she had ever imagined.  
  
She walked back to her desk, to print off the forms.  
  
*  
  
“We shouldn’t be stealing a car,” Arthur said, not looking behind him at where a combination of Merlin’s magic and Gwaine’s less than legal skills were hotwiring a car.  
  
“What else do you suggest we do?” Gwaine asked. “Walk into a car rental place and present our identification? In case you’d forgotten, we’re not being hunted down for tea and crumpets.”  
  
“We could take public transport,” Arthur suggested.  
  
“Really, because your stitches burst during our little scuffle earlier, and the blood’s soaking through your shirt,” Gwaine told him. “Someone might just notice that.”  
  
The engine revved into life.  
  
“Just because we’re being called criminals, doesn’t mean we need to act like them.”  
  
“Nothing wrong with being a criminal,” Gwaine told him as Arthur turned around to look at their new car. At least, he thought bleakly, it didn’t look like as much of a death trap as Merlin’s had. “I’ll have you know that before I bumped into you and Merlin I was a very successful one.”  
  
“I don’t want to know,” Arthur said.  
  
“Really? I’ve got some brilliant stories…”  
  
“Gwaine, stop upsetting Arthur’s world view. You know he can’t see the difference between legal and moral.”  
  
“I can see the difference, I just don’t see how anyone could be  _proud_  of being a criminal.”  
  
“Ah,” Gwaine said, “but I was a very  _good_  criminal.”  
  
They climbed into the car, Gwaine taking the passenger seat, forcing Arthur into the back.  
  
“You couldn’t have stolen a car with more leg space?” he asked.  
  
“If you wanted a say in what sort of car we got, you could have helped.”  
  
“Now,” Merlin said, cutting in with a tone of forced optimism. Arthur could tell that he was trying not to think of Freya. “Let’s get back home.”  
  
*  
  
“Gwen,” Leon said, walking into the main office of the Department. It was a huge, open plan room, all sleek shining desks and the newest computers. It looked like something out of a sci-fi show from his childhood, and in the middle of it all was Gwen, listening to something over her headset and her fingers typing themselves into a blur across the keyboard.  
  
She smiled at him in acknowledgement.  
  
“Yes sir, that’s understood,” she told whoever was on the other end of the line. “I’m sure that we’ll get that to you as soon as possible.”  
  
Leon sat down in a free chair, feeling less comfortable in this room than he ever had. On the other side of the room he could see the investigators poring over files, some of them giving him distinctly suspicious looks over their shoulders. He ignored them as best he could and waited for Gwen to finish.  
  
As she hung up the call, she stood.  
  
“I’ve just got to fetch something from the records room,” she said apologetically. “Can we walk and talk?” Leon shot a glance over to the investigators and nodded briefly. “Brilliant, thanks.”  
  
It was easier to breathe as soon as they were out of the room, and Gwen shook her head at him suddenly, her professional smile falling into a look of near anguish.  
  
“This way,” she said, leading him down towards the records room, which was on a lower level. They stepped into the lift and, as soon as they were in there, she slid the sleeve of her jacket off and twisted a gem in her bracelet. All the colours of the lift suddenly seemed to turn sepia apart from him and Gwen, and the sensation of movement stopped.

“Gaius adapted it,” she said, by way of explanation. “It’s a prototype.”  
  
“It stops time?” Leon asked.  
  
“Yes,” she confirmed, “only for a short time and a short distance. Have you heard from Arthur?”  
  
“He’s not stupid enough to contact me.” Leon lied. He didn’t want to, but as much as he trusted Gwen, he didn’t know if he trusted that device. Magic was tricky.  
  
“He didn’t do it,” Gwen said with complete certainty. “I know he and Uther weren’t seeing eye to eye about things recently, not since Merlin, really. But he would never have…”  
  
“I know,” Leon said, keeping his voice hushed, not quite trusting himself to magical technology. “I need you to look through the footage of that night and get it to me somehow.”  
  
“They’ve locked off all the investigation into Uther’s death,” Gwen told him, her eyes dropping. “No one in the department’s supposed to go near it, to avoid conflict of interest.”  
  
“Gwen,” Leon said. Her eyes snapped up to him and they held each other’s gaze. “I knew your father, and we went to school together. There’s nothing on a computer that you and your brother can’t find.”  
  
“I’ll get it for you,” she said. “I might need Elyan’s help. But if it’ll help Arthur, then I’ll do it.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“While we’re…” Gwen waved a hand at the strange sepia tone of the world. “Do you know this Aredian?”  
  
“Never heard of him before.”  
  
“There are others. Some man named Cedric insisted on having access to my workstation this morning, and there’s a woman whose name I didn’t catch. They say they’re from the security services and the government, but I’m not sure. They seem different somehow.”  
  
“You think they might have something to do with all of this.”  
  
“I don’t know what to think,” Gwen told him, letting out a deep breath. “I mean, Uther’s suite was the most heavily protected place in the country. No one could have got in there.”  
  
“Apart from Arthur,” Leon said.  
  
“But he wouldn’t,” Gwen repeated, shooting him a hard glance. “So someone got past the impassable security, and someone killed him.”   
  
“They were making a point,” Leon said, remembering the sight of Uther’s face, above the mess of his body. “They wanted us to know that they could get to him and to any of us. They killed him, framed Arthur and they’re going to get away with it. It was a message.”   
  
Gwen paused, as though she was going to say something she didn’t want to.  
  
“They’re asking about Merlin, too. About him and Arthur. They say that it’s because that was the last big security breach but…”  
  
There was a strange flickering, like dull strobe lighting.  
  
“It’s wearing off,” Gwen said. “Before it goes completely – You should know, Morgause is declaring a state of emergency. I heard her on the phone.” Leon opened his mouth to reply, but there was one last flicker of light and the sepia faded away, leaving the world in its true colours again, the lift continuing to move as though it had never stopped.  
  
They went down to the records room, Leon asking some rather inane questions regarding insignificant cases they were supposed to be investigating, Gwen making non-committal answers.  
  
Then Leon walked out and left Gwen to deal with Geoffrey, the head of the records room and one of the more crotchety of the Department’s old guard.  
  
*  
  
They had barely been back in Merlin’s house for a few minutes before a buzzing noise began, like white noise. Arthur was in the kitchen, taking more pain medication, and Merlin ran in.  
  
“We’ve got to go,” he said.  
  
“Why?” Arthur asked.  
  
“That’s the early warning system. Someone’s coming here.” Merlin had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and he was pulling his shoes on, hopping from one leg to the other. Arthur hadn’t taken his off yet.  
  
“Where’s Gwaine?” he asked.  
  
“He went to the shop down the road,” Merlin said, looking anxious. “We needed some food; I haven’t been shopping in a week.”  
  
“How-“ Arthur started, “Why-” He gave up, spluttering into silence and headed for the back door, “We’ll pick him up on the way.”  
  
“That’s the plan,” Merlin said, “Now -  _go_.”  
  
They were out of the back door in seconds and jumping over the fence into the garden of the next door neighbours. They sprinted over the next lawn and then scaled the next fence into the next garden.   
  
Arthur was grateful he had had the time to take the new dose of painkillers. He knew that the running and the climbing must have been opening old wounds up again, but he couldn’t really feel them.  
  
When they were four gardens away, they heard a shout from behind them.  
  
“They know we’ve run for it,” Merlin said. “How could they know we’d just left?”  
  
“The toaster,” Arthur said. “You had some bread I…” he stopped talking to concentrate on climbing the next fence, and risked a glance behind them, He could see the tops of heads in the back garden of Merlin’s house.  
  
Three more gardens and they reached the end of the street. Arthur went over first, and he caught Merlin’s bag as he swung it over, and then almost ended up being squashed under Merlin himself as he catapulted himself over the fence.  
  
“Where’s the shop?” Arthur asked. Merlin pointed and started walking, Arthur following.  
  
They rounded the corner and came out by the shop. Arthur could see a huge car outside Merlin’s house, and several men outside. One of them had long brown hair.  
  
“He’ll be in here,” Merlin said, indicating the shop. But Arthur held up a hand as he caught sight of something.  
  
“I don’t think he will,” he said.   
  
Two of the men half way down the street seemed to be struggling with something, and when they turned around, Arthur could see Gwaine between them, his arms caught. Just as Arthur caught sight of him, one of the other men, the one with the longer hair, caught sight of them and shouted, pointing.  
  
The distraction was just what Gwaine needed to get away from the men holding him, Arthur saw one of them hit the ground.  
  
“RUN!” Gwaine’s voice echoed up the street. Then he followed his own advice and ran, away from them, towards the other end of the street.  
  
Arthur grabbed hold of Merlin, who seemed poised to start running in the wrong direction, and pulled him in the opposite direction, away from the men and Gwaine.  
  
“We’ve got to help him,” Merlin insisted, Arthur hauled him round the corner, practically lifting him off his feet.   
  
There were gunshots.  
  
“We need to get out of here.”  
  
“Gwaine’s got the stone,” Merlin said.  
  
Footsteps clattered on the pavement, and there was the distant sound of gunshots.   
  
“He ran away from us for a reason,” Arthur said. “They were expecting him to go towards us. That gave him an extra second’s head start, and it split their forces. He doesn’t want us to go back for him.”  
  
“But if they get him.” Merlin started moving on his own, but he was still looking behind them.  
  
“Do you trust him?” Arthur asked. Merlin turned his face towards him, looking at Arthur for the first time since they had caught sight of Gwaine.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Then trust him to know what he’s doing,” Arthur said. “I don’t know him as well as you do, but if I know one thing about him, it’s that he’s about as good at getting himself out of trouble as he is at getting into it.”  
  
We’re going to need a new car,” Merlin said after a moment, running properly.  
  
“Two cars in one day.”  
  
“You’re wanted for murder, Arthur,” Merlin pointed out, “what’s a little car theft added on to that?”  
  
“You have a point.”  
  
*  
  
Aredian had his shark smile on again. Leon forced himself to smile back, as pleasantly as possible.  
  
“Sit down, Agent Harris,” Aredian said. There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. He sounded  _smug_ , and Leon had to swallow back a moment of panic.  _Does he know?_  was the first question flashing through his brain. After what Gwen had said, it was possible that they had overheard that phone conversation.  
  
“I prefer to stand,” he said lightly.  
  
“Sit down, Agent Harris,” Aredian repeated, his face losing all trace of nicety. Leon sat as nonchalantly as he could manage and wondered whether they’d send him to the detention centre or to an ordinary prison, or maybe there wouldn’t be any prison at all. They weren’t exactly an official organisation in any traditional sense of the word. It would be easy for them to…  
  
He pulled his brain away from the idea and back to the matter at hand.  
  
“We have a few more questions about Agent Pendragon,” Aredian said, looking down at the sheet of paper in front of him, as though he didn’t know precisely what he was about to say. “Approximately four years ago, there was an incident, I believe.”  
  
Leon had been prepared for that question and thanked Gwen for the heads up.   
  
“One of our agents was discovered to be a magic user.”  
  
“And he ran, with the aid of another of your agents, and he has not yet been discovered,” Aredian continued. “A Merlin Emrys, I believe.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Leon said calmly, choosing to stare at a spot on Aredian’s cheek rather than look him in the eyes. There was a certain mindset you could get in at times like these, it had been a mindset that had worked well when reporting failure to Uther, where you answered automatically and kept everything so deep down inside that it didn’t even shimmer on the surface. Arthur had never quite managed to get it down, his emotions had always been visible if you were looking hard enough.  
  
“How did that affect Agent Pendragon?”  
  
“He was understandably upset,” Leon replied.  
  
“Of course,” Aredian said, smiling sharply. “Just as he is understandably upset by his father’s death.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“That wasn’t a question.” Aredian tapped his fingertips against the table in an arrhythmic beat which set Leon’s teeth on edge. “I can see that from his records, actually. Four years ago they take a distinct turn. Not for the worse, of course, he was always an exemplary agent. Dotted every i and crossed every t, so to speak. But there is a definite pattern. It appears that in the aftermath of the discovery of Mr Emrys’s deception, Agent Pendragon became more reckless.”  
  
“It’s a dangerous job,” Leon said. “Sometimes you have to take risks.”  
  
“He ended up in the hospital seventeen times in one year, and in the scientific research centre with unidentifiable magical injuries five times in the same period of time.”  
  
“Arthur wasn’t afraid to lead from the front,” Leon tried to keep as much of the acid out of his voice as he could. “He didn’t sit back and let other people take the risks for him.”  
  
“You call him Arthur,” Aredian said. “Why is that?”  
  
“We’ve worked closely together for years. It would be strange to refer to him as ‘Agent Pendragon’ all the time.”  
  
“Would you refer to him as a friend?” Aredian asked.  
  
“I see most of my colleagues as friends. It’s difficult not to in this job.”  
  
“A good answer, almost textbook, Agent Harris.”  
  
“And a truthful one.”  
  
“So, as his friend,” Aredian drew the word out like an insinuation, “did you ever have reason to worry about his attitude to his work in the past four years?”  
  
“I-“ Leon looked down at the innocent looking papers in front of Aredian and knew, immediately, where this was going. “He was coping, and I never worried about having him protect my back.”  
  
“Then why did you express concern to a colleague about his drinking? Did Agent Pendragon drink a lot?”  
  
“He overindulged a couple of times, no more than anyone else in this department has done on other occasions.”  
  
“And yet you’ve never mentioned the drinking habits of other colleagues. Would you say that Agent Pendragon had become, or was on his way to becoming an alcoholic?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“But you don’t deny that you expressed your concerns about this?”  
  
“I may have made a comment, in confidence, to a colleague. I never made a formal statement to that effect.”  
  
“So were you or were you not concerned about Agent Pendragon’s alcoholism.”  
  
“He’s not an alcoholic.”  
  
“Answer the question.”  
  
“I-“ Leon drew in a breath. “I was not overly concerned.”  
  
“But you were concerned,” Aredian continued.  
  
“He was upset, of course I was concerned,” Leon snapped.  
  
“Upset about Mr Emrys’s betrayal.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“More than anyone else in the department?”  
  
“They worked together a lot. More than anyone else,” Leon clarified, trying to rein back his irritation and gain his calm façade again.  
  
“So they were close?” Aredian’s eyebrow rose up his forehead.  
  
“When you trust someone to keep you alive, you have to be close to them,” Leon said.  
  
“How close would you say that Mr Emrys and Agent Pendragon were?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Don’t be coy, Agent Harris. I’m asking if you thought that they were lovers.”  
  
“I don’t see what that question has to do with anything that you could be investigating?”  
  
“Agent Pendragon has been erratic since Mr Emrys left. He’s been descending into alcoholism and suicidal tendencies.”  
  
“Arthur’s not suicidal.” But Aredian ignored Leon’s words as though they had never even occurred.  
  
“Our records show that his relationship with his father was rapidly deteriorating as well. If Mr Emrys was his lover then that would explain several things.”  
  
Leon looked Aredian in the eye for the first time since walking in. There wasn’t anything there but reflective, blank blue. He remembered Arthur and Merlin. They had barely been apart and of course, he had wondered. He had always wondered, especially in the years afterwards, when it had been his unofficial job to scrape Arthur off bars and pavements and carry him back to his flat as he murmured Merlin’s name mingled with curses and pleas.  
  
He remembered the way Arthur had used to kick out at Merlin’s office chair, sending him spinning across the room, the way, one week when nothing much was happening, Merlin had built a catapult out of rulers, pencils and elastic bands, just to fire Maltesers at Arthur’s head.  
  
“I wouldn’t know.”  
  
“Right,” Aredian said. “You said earlier that you would refer to all your colleagues as friends. Would you also have referred to Mr Emrys as such?”  
  
“Yes,” Leon said, without even pausing.  
  
“And yet you have no idea whether two of your friends – people you trusted to watch your back, people you trusted with your life – were in a relationship? I thought you were supposed to be observant, Agent Harris.” Leon dragged his eyes away from Aredian’s and studied a spot on the far wall as closely as he could.  
  
“You had a lucky escape this morning,” Aredian said, changing tack again, making Leon’s eyes dart back to him in surprise for a split second before he could regain composure. “I understand that you saved the lives of both Agent Smith and my own colleague.”  
  
“It was a close call.”  
  
“How did that work, exactly?” Aredian asked. His voice sounded light and interested, but in the same way that the tide went out before a tsunami hit.  
  
“I followed procedure.”  
  
“Ah, procedure,” Aredian said. “My colleague says that ‘procedure’ involved extensive equipment and what seemed, from his point of view, to be an enormous amount of luck.” Leon thought about Cedric, who had been still been gibbering a little when he had left him. “But I’ve looked through the books of procedure, and what you were on appeared to be nothing more than a small anomaly in the electro-magnetic fields. Standard procedure calls for no more technical equipment than a handheld magic detection device. Yet you deliberately chose not to touch the infected house. Why is that?”  
  
“It was too quiet,” Leon said slowly. “I’ve been doing this job for almost twelve years. You learn to trust your instincts.”  
  
“Your instincts are clearly finely tuned… about these sorts of things, if not others.”  
  
“Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong. It never hurts to take precautions.”  
  
“You knew to hide behind the car, you knew not to touch the door,” Aredian went on, “some people would balk at calling that luck, or  _instinct_. Some people might think that your instincts were based on information.”  
  
“What are you suggesting?”  
  
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just pointing out that such good luck seems rather  _unlikely_ , wouldn’t you agree.”  
  
“You’re saying that something’s wrong because I’m good at my job.”  
  
“If anyone else had been sent out to that house this morning do you think they would have come back alive?” Aredian asked.  
  
“So I’m being interrogated because I’m alive?”  
  
“Did you have information about that house this morning?”  
  
“You think I had something to do with it? If I had had anything to do with that trap, why would I have gone myself? Surely if I had laid a trap like that I would have done it for some other reason than to almost kill myself?”  
  
“Perhaps you didn’t realise that it was a trap until you were told.”  
  
“Told by who?”  
  
“My colleague reported that you had a phone call just before you  _instinctively_  decided to take extra precautions. Who was that phone call from?”  
  
“A contact, about another case entirely.”  
  
“No name?”  
  
“Informants names are protected, for their own safety, and for the safety of our information network,” Leon said. “Just the same as with the police. You can’t ask me to give up my sources. You don’t have that level of clearance.”  
  
“No. But I am allowed to make my own conclusions based on the evidence at hand, and that evidence is pointing a rather large finger at you.”  
  
“Sir?” Leon felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He breathed through his nose as steadily as he could and tried to stop his alarm from showing on his face. He watched as Aredian slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an evidence bag with something small and gold in the bottom, a pin in the shape of a dragon.  
  
“I believe this pin is given to Agents for serving in the department for ten years,” Aredian said, dropping it onto the table. Leon’s fingers when automatically to the breast pocket of his jacket, but he only felt the hole where the pin had gone. “There are seven agents who have one of these. Arthur Pendragon was not one of them, though I believe he wears the silver pin for five years service. All the others have accounted for theirs. Yours, however, seems to be missing.”  
  
Leon reached out for the bag. Aredian didn’t stop him, so he picked it up. The dragon was definitely his, the tip of the wing had been bent back six months ago when it had fallen on the floor and he had stood on it accidentally. It was exactly as he remembered it being, apart from a pattern of dark brown specks across it.  
  
“Where did you find this?” he asked, trying to remember when he last knew that he had had it.  
  
“It was on the floor, five feet from Uther Pendragon’s body.”  
  
“I was there this morning, it could have fallen then.”  
  
“The marks on it are blood, Uther Pendragon’s blood,” Aredian told him, “they’re consistent with high velocity spatter our experts assure me.”  
  
“I had nothing to do with Uther’s death. This proves nothing. I wear this on my jacket, and I leave my jacket places all the time. It could have been taken from me by  _anyone_.”  
  
“By Arthur, perhaps?” Leon just glared at him, his fingers brushing round the badge, tracing over its lines for some form of comfort. It didn’t give him any. “You’re right, of course, we can’t arrest you for murder based on a badge. Your jacket has no signs of blood on it, after all, and you could have lost it at any time. But combined with other factors – your close friendship with Arthur Pendragon, your detailed knowledge of this morning’s attack, you understand that we can’t allow you to continue working here unchecked.”  
  
“You’re firing me?”  
  
“For the time being you are suspended indefinitely and without pay, until an investigation into your activities can be completed. You will be monitored.”  
  
  
“I’m being suspended for being too good at my job,” Leon said in disbelief.  
  
“Please hand over your gun and your pass-card for this building. You will be escorted home by one of my colleagues.”  
  
“I know my way home, thanks.”  
  
“The escort is not optional,” Aredian stood up, prompting Leon to do the same, if only so that he could have the slight advantage in height, if nothing else. “Your gun and your pass-card, please.”  
  
“Sir.” Leon pulled his gun from its holster and placed it onto the table carefully. He unclipped his pass-card from his shirt pocket and placed that down next to it.  
  
“Will you require anything from your desk?” Aredian asked.  
  
“Do I have a choice?”  
  
“Nothing that belongs to the department,” Aredian told him, “but your personal effects, of course.”  
  
“Then no, there’s nothing in my desk.”  
  
The walk from the interrogation room through the heart of the department was both longer and shorter than he had ever seen it before. He passed people on the way out who watched him with huge, shocked eyes. He tried not to look at them, concentrating on the back of the man in front of him – his own personal guard. But what little glimpses he caught out of the side of his eyes, gave him the impression that his departure was causing more worry than suspicion.  
  
They had reached the front desk when Gwen came flying towards them, trying to combine speed and professionalism and succeeding after a fashion. He smiled at her as she caught up.  
  
“Leon!” she said, catching hold of his arm. “I just heard…” She looked at the man next to him bitterly. “I can’t believe that they’d ever think that you…” Gwen trailed off and sighed, shaking her head. Then she did the unexpected and flung her arms around his neck. He tried not to look too surprised and tentatively hugged her back. Then, as she pulled back, he felt something drop into his jacket pocket and he caught her eye. “Be careful,” she said, before turning to walk away.  
  
He didn’t put his hands into his pockets immediately. He didn’t even let his finger twitch in that direction, though his curiosity was on edge. He cast one long glance back at Gwen’s retreating back as she walked towards the lifts, and then turned as his guard coughed impatiently.  
  
*  
  
The drive back was uncomfortable and awkward. The guard didn’t speak more than three words the whole time, two of which were ‘seat belt’ and the other was a muttered curse as another driver cut in front of him. Leon sat in the back, trying to pretend that made it more like being in a taxi, than being in a police car.  
  
He got out without waiting for permission when they pulled up outside his house, and he glanced around the street. There were at least three people watching the place, he could see without even trying. He ignored the weight of their gazes as best as he could, and unlocked the door, walking in and picking up his junk mail from the doormat.  
  
There was no one for him to talk to at home, which was a blessing. He didn’t think he could handle explanations at this point.  
  
He walked into the living room and flopped back onto the sofa, hyperaware that whoever was watching him had more than enough money and time to have bugged his entire house.  
  
He slipped his hand into his pocket experimentally and felt it close around three things. A slip of folded paper, a mobile phone and something strange, rounded shapes that moved like a chain.  
  
He frowned, fiddling with the mystery item. His fingers slid over smooth hemispheres and then dipped into gaps. He finally reached an end, which had some sort of moving part which he could pull back with a fingernail and which snapped back into place, as though spring-loaded.  
  
It came to him in a flash of inspiration. Gwen’s bracelet. He sat up a little straighter without meaning to, before remembering the surveillance, which must have been why she had given it to him in the first place. There was no point in passing on a secret message if it would be monitored immediately.  
  
He found each of the hemispheres again – gems he knew now – and pushed at them slightly until he found the one which gave way. He turned it and watched the colours fade into sepia again, memorising his exact position before pulling the paper and the mobile out of his pocket.  
  
The paper had a mobile number written on it in Gwen’s precise handwriting. Leon dialled it immediately, knowing instinctively that the phone was more secure than any other phone he could use. All he could hear for a few seconds was dial tone, and he wondered whether the effects of the bracelet would wear off before he finished the phone call. Then it finally began to ring and he heaved a sigh of relief, though one eye was on the window out of some sort of nervousness.  
  
The phone at the other end of the line was answered and a familiar voice said.  
  
“Gwen, what’s happened?”  
  
“Lancelot?” Leon said, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He knew that Gwen and Lancelot had been close. But Lancelot had left the Department almost four years ago, in the aftermath of Merlin’s escape. Why would Gwen want him to contact Lancelot, of all people?  
  
“Leon?” Lancelot said, echoing him in disbelief. “How did you get this number? Is Gwen okay?”  
  
“She’s fine,” Leon assured him down the line, “it’s me that’s in trouble. She gave me this number.”  
  
“Is this about Uther?”  
  
“You know about that?”  
  
“Everyone who knows anything about magic knows about that.”  
  
“Someone’s set Arthur up,” Leon said, “and the Internal Affairs people are on some kind of witch hunt. I’m on suspension pending investigation. They think I’m a traitor.”  
  
“Can you get away unseen?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” Leon admitted.  
  
“That’s more difficult,” Lancelot told him, “but if you still live at the same address I think we can get to you. Is that okay?”  
  
“That sounds like a good idea. I don’t… I don’t trust Internal Affairs,” Leon admitted out loud for the first time. They’re certain that Arthur did it and the interim director she’s… She’s magical.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Positive.”  
  
“We’ll get to you as soon as we can,” Lancelot told him. “Try and act normal.”  
  
“I’m not sure what ‘normal’ is in this situation.” That earned him a ragged laugh from the other end.  
  
“Fair point. See you shortly.” Lancelot hung up, just in time, as the sepia began to shimmer.  
  
Leon stuffed the phone and paper back into his pocket and resumed his position as carefully as he could.  
  
The world faded into colour again and he propped his feet up on the table. His mind spun with questions. Why had Gwen given him Lance’s number? Who were the ‘we’ that Lance was talking about? And the bigger questions, about the department and its new director, about who the men outside his house were working for, about who had taken his ten year service badge and worn it to kill Uther Pendragon.  
  
He dropped his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes, groaning.  
  
*  
  
Arthur opened the passenger side door of the car and threw Merlin into the passenger seat, grabbing the keys from his pocket. There were some shots after them, and one of their pursuers made it to the car door. Merlin’s shield was the only thing that prevented Arthur from having his brains blown out at close range, but it didn’t stop the car window from shattering into a thousand sharp, shimmering pieces.  
  
A wave of Merlin’s hand and the ignition was turning and the car flared into life.  
  
“Useful,” Arthur muttered, but he didn’t get a response.  
  
He hit the accelerator and drove as fast and as far as he could. As he looked in the mirror he saw a man staring after them with more purpose than any of the others had had. He didn’t hold himself like a zombie or a puppet. He had long dark hair but that was all Arthur could really see. He didn’t stick around long enough to see more.  
  
“We can’t go back to your house,” Arthur said. “And we’ll have to ditch the car. We’ll have to find some way to contact Gwaine though.”  
  
He refused to believe that Gwaine was dead. The idea didn’t fit into his brain. For all his insanity and risk taking, Gwaine had always seemed strangely invincible. The idea of him shot dead just didn’t work, not even a little bit.  
  
“He’ll know where I’ll go,” Merlin said. “We have back up plans, and stuff.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked. He couldn’t stop checking his rear view mirror, convinced that they were being followed, though it would take their pursuers too long to get back to their vehicle and come after them.  
  
“There’s a travel lodge,” Merlin said. “We should check in there with the name ‘Mr Bristow’.”  
  
“You have a contingency plan for if you can’t go back to your own house?” Arthur asked. He knew he worked for a secret government organisation, but he’d never heard anything quite so ridiculously James Bond in his life.  
  
“We’re on the run from the government,” Merlin said, “it was always going to be a possibility.” He didn’t manage to put the humour into that sentence that Arthur would have expected, and when Arthur stopped his obsessive mirror checking long enough to glance over at him, he saw that Merlin looked broken.  
  
“They’ll be fine,” Arthur said. “Gwaine’s run away from more men with guns than anyone else I know, and he’s never even been shot.”  
  
Merlin nodded, but he didn’t say anything.  
  
*  
  
They made it to the travel lodge all right, and the woman at the desk didn’t even bat an eyelid when she looked at them. Arthur’s photograph either hadn’t been circulated, or she didn’t watch the news.  
  
They walked up to the room in silence, eyeing everyone who passed them with concern and suspicion. It wasn’t until the door of their room had closed behind them that Arthur let his shoulders relax even a little. But Merlin was still wound up. He sat on the end of the bed, bolt upright. Arthur took the desk chair. He was starting to ache again, and he knew that if he sat anywhere comfortable then he’d never get back up.  
  
“Gwaine should be here by now,” Merlin said, pacing the room again. Arthur glared at his legs from the desk chair. It was all he could see without raising his head, and he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to make eye contact, not right now. The flow of hope that Merlin had managed to bring about that morning had ebbed away second by second, leaving him in no doubt that this nightmare would never end.  
  
“He probably got distracted by some alcohol, or a girl,” Arthur managed to say, though there was no energy in the words.  
  
“He wouldn’t do that,” Merlin said. "I know what you think of him, but he's not like that."  
  
“He’s never exactly shown signs of professionalism, Merlin,” Arthur said. "When we first met him he was half naked in a bar."  
  
“Then it’s a good thing he’s not working in a  _professional_  capacity right now then, isn’t it?” Merlin's tone dragged Arthur’s eyes to meet his. "Believe me when I say that there is nothing Gwaine wouldn't do for his friends."  
  
“You mean there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for  _you_."  
  
Merlin stared back at him, clearly insulted by something in his tone or affronted by the words themselves. He didn't understand why, Gwaine had always made it clear where his loyalties lay, hadn't he?  
  
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty much the only friend he’s  _got_ ,” Merlin snapped back, though as soon as the words were out of his mouth his face spasmed with guilt for a moment. “And he’s pretty much the only friend I’ve got as well.”  
  
“Yes, I've heard that betrayal can be lonely," Arthur said. There was a strange, vicious sort of glee that stabbed through him when he saw Merlin flinch back, as though struck.  _Good_ , he thought,  _feel guilty_ , and underneath that, quieter, more brokenly:  _you left me_.  
  
“I never –“ Merlin began, but then he threw up his arms in exasperation. "You really want to do this now? In the middle of all  _this_  you want to have this conversation? Because we will, if you want."  
  
“I-“ Arthur started, but apparently Merlin was more interested in a monologue than a conversation, because he kept going as though Arthur hadn’t even spoken.   
  
“I’m magic. I’m a sorcerer. No I didn’t tell you. Surprise!” Sparks flew from Merlin's hands, forming a small gold Pegasus that flew between them. Arthur's mouth stayed open, jaw relaxing as no words came. “Is that what you wanted me to say? When would have been the best time, do you think? While we were tracking down dangerous magical killers? While we were running for our lives? While we were filling in reports recommending that people be remanded in detention for the rest of their lives? While we were standing in front of your  _father_  as he told us that we needed to 'strike down harder on the magical menace'?"  
  
“He never used the phrase magical menace in his life,” Arthur said. It was inappropriate and completely out of line, but it was enough to steal the next words from Merlin's mouth. "How about telling me when we were chatting over beers? When we got coffee on a break in between all-nighters. When I fell asleep on your floor? When you fell asleep on my sofa and snored like a warthog... when you woke up in my bed the first time, or -- Fuck Merlin! -- maybe the night before that when we... You had chances. Don't act like you didn't have chances."  
  
“And if I’d said it then,” Merlin asked, standing his ground with more composure than Arthur thought he had ever seen on the man’s face before. “If I had said that, then, what would have happened next?”  
  
Arthur opened his mouth to say something comforting, something like 'exactly what happened next when you didn't' or 'I wouldn't have cared'. But the words weren't true. He didn't know what he would have done. He brought down his fist on the fake wood of the desktop, the bang resounding through the room like a gunshot.   
  
“That’s what I thought,” Merlin said. His voice was quiet now.  
  
“I wish you’d told me,” Arthur replied. Though he knew that was a lie too. He was selfishly glad that it hadn’t happened that way, that he hadn’t been forced to make that decision. “I wish I knew.” He didn’t mean about the magic that time though. He wished he knew what he would have done if Merlin  _had_ told him. He wished that he could have had Gwaine's courage and stood up and sided with Merlin, to hell with the consequences. He wished he had that much freedom in his actions.  
  
“You couldn’t have stayed,” he said into the rather hollow silence. “Even if I hadn’t,”  _pointed a gun at you and threatened your life_ , “you couldn’t have stayed. They all saw.”  
  
“I know,” Merlin said. Arthur watched him fall back onto the hotel bed with a huff of a sigh. He watched the bounce of his knees against the mattress. “I know. But I wish it hadn’t ended like that.”  
  
“I’m glad,” Arthur began, uncertain how to voice the words. He didn’t want to voice them, not even a little bit. “I’m glad you had someone." He couldn't quite bring himself to say  _Gwaine_  as though the name would make it more tangible somehow.  
  
“So am I."  
  
The room felt broken. Arthur sitting by the desk, Merlin thrown down on the bed. The bland expanse of functional hotel carpet between them. There were cars rushing past outside and Arthur wondered how he hadn't noticed that they were facing the road until then. He noticed things like that. It was his  _job_  to notice things like that. The traffic noises seemed to grow louder second by second.  
  
“I should have told you,” Merlin said. He sounded as uncomfortable as Arthur felt.  
  
“I know why you didn’t,” Arthur said, almost without wanting to.  
  
“I still should have told you. I should have trusted you,” Merlin shrugged.   
  
“Did Gwaine know?” Arthur asked. It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, but it was safer than ‘did you miss me?’ and ‘do you still want me?’ which were both threatening to run off his tongue. “Before, I mean.”  
  
“No,” Merlin said immediately and without hesitation. “It was as much of a surprise to him that day as it was to you.”  
  
Arthur doubted that that was true. He doubted that anyone had ever been as surprised as he had been that day when he had gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, expecting to be crushed only to find himself protected, and his boyfriend with one hand extended and his eyes bright gold.  
  
“Lancelot knew,” Merlin said, after a moment. “I didn’t tell him, he found out.”  
  
Arthur wanted to be annoyed about that, but he found that he couldn’t, not really. Lancelot was the sort of person who knew things like that, and he hadn’t threatened Merlin’s life. He had even stood in Merlin’s corner.  
  
“He quit, you know,” Arthur said after a moment. “I think it was in protest for what happened to you, but he never said. But he left.”  
  
“He’s a good man,” Merlin said with a half smile.  
  
Arthur didn’t know whether to agree with that or not. There was the definite implication behind the words ‘ _you’re not_ ’. He didn’t think that Merlin meant it like that, but it was undeniable. Gwaine and Lancelot, they had both stood up for their friend in their own ways. They had dared to fight for him, but Arthur hadn’t. Arthur had stayed and fallen apart. He’d gone out and got drunk, and then he’d picked himself up and wobbled on for another few months before repeating the process. He swallowed down his pride and opened his mouth, the apology rising steadily up his throat. But nothing came  
  
"He'll be fine," Arthur said, after seconds oozed into minutes. "He always is, remember."  
  
Merlin shot him a momentary, dazzling grin, before his face fell slack again.   
  
“I know,” he said. “He can take care of himself. But I always feel responsible. You were right when you said he left for me. He came with me and I've done nothing but-"  
  
“He can also make his own decisions,” Arthur pointed out. "Though I don't know which idea is worse: Gwaine on his own, or Gwaine with help from your rather inept brain cells.”  
  
“Hey!” Merlin’s arm reached out to grab a pillow and lob it at him. Arthur caught it easily. "I thought you were apologising for being an enormous git.”  
  
“If either of us was apologising, Merlin, it was you." The pillow was thrown back, hitting Merlin quite satisfyingly in the face, muffling his cry of outrage.  
  
Feeling brave, Arthur stood up and crossed the fissure in the room until his knee was less than ten centimetres from Merlin’s. Merlin, face still hidden beneath the pillow (which he was spectacularly failing to get off his face with bizarre arm flails) didn’t even notice.  
  
“I’m actually surprised either of you lasted this long,” Arthur said as airily as he could. “You have no idea how easy you were to track down when I started looking.”  
  
The pillow finally lost the fight, flung across the room by a flick of magic (and why hadn’t Merlin just done that in the  _first place_?) Merlin started when he saw Arthur so close and shrugged, a movement that looked a lot stranger on someone lying down, the duvet bunching around him.   
  
“We were stealthy," he complained, "we were really stealthy."  
  
“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” Arthur told him, “and Gwaine's idea of stealth is just not blowing up anything bigger than a car." Merlin chuckled a little.  
  
“Your fake name is the name of your imaginary pet dog," Arthur said after another moment. Merlin shrugged again, his t-shirt riding up as he did so, and refusing to go back down.  
  
“Only you would have known that!" Merlin protested. "I only ever told you and Will."  
  
“You don’t seem to have grasped the mechanics of the situation very well,” Arthur said, speaking a little more slowly just to hammer his point home. “I was the person you were hiding from. Leaving clues that I could see through in a heartbeat was hardly the best idea.”  
  
“I wasn’t hiding from you,” Merlin said. He was looking at Arthur with a gaze that saw right through him.  
  
“I could have told my father,” Arthur said. “I could have hunted you down and killed you. I could have sent rabid wyverns after you – we have some you know, in the research centre.”  
  
“You didn't,” Merlin said. His grin was smug and Arthur sighed in infuriation at his ridiculous  _faith_.  
  
“How are you even  _alive_?” he asked.  
  
“I could ask you the same thing,” Merlin retorted. “You were always useless without me. The number of times I saved your neck from being broken, or your heart from being ripped out of your chest, or your head from being eaten, or your skin from being flayed from your bones."  
  
“I got myself out of tho-“ Arthur started, before noticing Merlin’s rather gleeful grin. “You?  _You_  and your  _meddling_?"  
  
“Thank you, Merlin, for saving my arse repeatedly without any reward."  
  
“ _You_?” Arthur asked again, aghast. “Seriously,  _you_?”  
  
“You’ve had four years to work it out and you’re really only now getting to this bit?” Merlin asked, reaching up to wrap his knuckles lightly against Arthur’s forehead, making Arthur dimly aware that he must have sat down on the edge of the bed at some point. “And you tell me  _I’m_  slow.”  
  
“You are.”  
  
“Well, you’re slower.”  
  
“Any slower than you and I’d be going through my life backwards,” Arthur retorted, Making Merlin look smug. “No, not like that. I didn’t mean. Just…  _fuck_. You saved my life.”  
  
“And you threatened to kill me."  
  
“I didn’t know,” Arthur said. “I didn’t  _know_.”  
  
“You learnt about my magic after I used it to stop a falling building from  _crushing you to death_. What did you think I was using it for the rest of the time?"  
  
“I  _didn’t know_.” Arthur wondered if he should say the rest, tell Merlin the ‘I had to’ because if he hadn’t then maybe Merlin would have been stupid enough not to run. Arthur had had to take away any reason he had to stay.   
  
“It’s okay,” Merlin told him, “you don’t need brains. Just get by on your good looks and rippling muscles. I’ll be the brains for both of us.”  
  
Arthur took in Merlin’s rather scarily wide grin and his bright blue eyed gaze and groaned.  
  
“We’re doomed,” he said.  
  
"And that,” Merlin said, triumphantly, “is exactly why I make the plans. It’s all in the attitude.”  
  
Arthur realised that the back of his hand was somehow pressed up against Merlin’s thigh, rough denim rubbing against it as Merlin squirmed to get more comfortable. He lifted it up, startled, and Merlin froze.  
  
They looked at each other, suddenly awkward again, and Arthur slowly lowered his hand back down so that his fingers were resting on Merlin’s thigh.  
  
It was probably for the best, Arthur decided, that they heard the key card slide into the door lock then, and Arthur was reaching for a weapon he no longer had and Merlin was suddenly sitting up, hand splayed at the door in a motion that would have looked ridiculous to anyone who hadn't known Merlin could stop bullets with a thought.  
  
The door opened and Gwaine walked in carrying a heavy looking bag. He smiled rather serenely at the agitation on their faces. And, to Arthur’s irrational annoyance, he looked none the worse for wear for all his adventure.   
  
“You couldn’t have  _knocked_ ," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a low growl.   
  
“Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?” Gwaine asked cheerily. Merlin shook his head and Arthur just continued glaring. "Really - I’m out risking my life for you two layabouts and you’re-“ The pillow hit him full force in the face. “Emrys.”  
  
“You’re not dead,” Merlin announced to the world as though this was a new piece of information and not something that was blatantly obvious from Gwaine’s appearance in the room. He was on his feet in a second and Arthur watched the pair of them hug in a way that had none of the awkwardness Arthur had never managed to get rid of. "Brilliant. Do you still have it?"  
  
“You're going to start doubting me now?” Gwaine asked, pulling away, but leaving his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, like it was…  
  
Arthur cut off the thought. He cut off the whole part of his brain that was thinking it and then he looked at Gwaine's face rather than his hand and reminded himself that his world was falling apart and that had nothing to do with where Gwaine put his hands.  
  
“Do you?” Arthur asked, raising an eyebrow and ignoring Gwaine’s knowing little smirk.  
  
“Of course, your highness.” He pulled away from Merlin and bowed a deep, extremely mocking bow, complete with little flourishes of his hand and a swish of his hair, all of which made another chuckle burst from Merlin, though he tried his very hardest to look innocent when Arthur glanced at him. As he straightened up he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, rather innocent looking stone from his pocket that might, possibly, have been called egg shaped if the person looking at it hadn't ever seen an egg.  
  
Ever.  
  
“That’s it?” he asked. Though the item resting in Gwaine's palm was vaguely familiar.  
  
“Can’t you taste it?” Merlin asked, his mouth twisting in disgust. “It’s in the air, like metal and ash.”  
  
“Yeah, not the nicest flavour in the world,” Gwaine agreed. Arthur looked between them, blinking in astonishment.  
  
“You can  _taste_  magic?” he asked.  
  
“Taste, smell," Merlin said with a shrug. "Most people can, at least a little. Can't you?"  
  
“Apparently not,” Arthur said, straightening up.   
  
“Really, because I thought-“ Merlin said. “Leon always could. Didn’t you know?”  
  
“ _Leon_  can do this?” Arthur said.  
  
“Uh yes… I mean, I think so,” Merlin told him. “He’d look at me sometimes, after I’d done magic, but I always managed to be by something magical, so I don’t think he ever really made the connection.”  
  
"Don't worry about it, Prince Charming," Gwaine said, nodding at Arthur in what was probably meant to be a reassuring way. "Can't be perfect at everything, now, can we? Or anything, to be honest."  
  
“Like you can talk." Arthur reached out to pick the rock out of Gwaine's hand. It was warm to the touch, and he didn't think it was only from Gwaine's body heat. "This seems familiar somehow."  
  
“Have you seen one before?" Merlin asked. Arthur looked up from the stone to see the other two both watching him curiously.  
  
“No, I don't think so." He glanced down again. "So what do we do with it?"  
  
“Well,” Arthur said, “I think they know we have it now.”  
  
“No,” Gwaine agreed, “that seems pretty undeniable.”  
  
“So we can still find out who’s behind this, we don’t really  _need_  the stone anymore.”  
  
“You think we should destroy it?” Merlin asked, looking down at the misshapen blob. Arthur hesitated. There was a part of him that wanted to know what it did. He wanted to know just what his father had died for.  
  
“I think, if Freya was right, that we have to,” he said.  
  
“All right then, let’s have a go.”  
  
They tried everything: crushing it, burning it, magical spells of all sorts and types. Merlin must have spent a good couple of hours just staring at it, muttering spells that did nothing but accidentally set fire to the heavily starched hotel sheets.  
  
“It’s no good,” Merlin said, throwing up his hands. “I’ve tried everything I can think of and I can’t even scratch it.”  
  
“Are you sure you’ve tried everything?” Arthur asked. Merlin didn’t even glance at him, though Arthur would have expected a snappy come back of some sort.  
  
“Everything. I’m out of ideas.” Arthur looked at him, and at the stone, and he sighed. He had to admit, he’d already known it would end up like this for the last hour or so, but he’d let Merlin keep on at it. He needed something to do.  
  
“Then we’ll just have to do our best to keep it away from them,” he said. It didn’t sound like a good plan.  
  
*

The knock at the door was unexpected and it startled Leon, not that he had been doing anything to be interrupted. Since he had ended the conversation with Lancelot on the phone all Leon had managed to do was pace from one room to the next. He had turned the TV on and then off again, unable to summon the concentration to watch the rubbish that was on. His brain was buzzing, going round and round in circles, his conversation with Aredian repeating until he wasn't sure what was actual memory and what was wishful thinking. _I should have said this_ , he thought, rewriting his own part until it was a muddled confusion.  
  
There had been nothing he could have done, Leon told himself firmly, standing up from the kitchen table and stalking out of the room again, leaving a half brewed pot off coffee behind him. He couldn't have said or done anything that would have kept him his job. He had done the best he could with the information he had and-  
  
Then the knock interrupted his thoughts and he jumped a little, turning in alarm.  
  
His mind went to the worst place first, a vague idea of some faceless person  _coming for him_ , but then he reminded himself that they had already got him out of the way, why would they send someone after him now? He was hardly a threat.  
  
He opened the door, half expecting one of Aredian’s guards to be standing there with a warrant for his arrest, but it was a man with a collection tin instead. He was taller than Leon himself and built like a Rugby player. He held out the collecting tin with a hint of a smile.  
  
“Support your local hospital,” the stranger said. His mouth twisted a little, like he was amused and Leon knew there was something strange going on. The box looked authentic, though, and none of the surveillance team on the street seemed to be paying him any mind.  
  
"Sure," Leon said, reaching into his pocket for some spare change. “Do you just do this street or…?”  
  
“Next one down, too," the man said. Leon's coins clinked into the bottom of the tin and the man produced a leaflet from his pocket. "Here," he said, handing it over. "See where your money’s going.”  
  
Leon nodded and watched the man walk back down his front path and on to the next house. He continued watching as he knocked at Mrs Edgecombe’s door and gave his rather sparse sales pitch.  
  
Leon caught the eye of one of the men in the car across the street and hurriedly walked inside again, shutting the door behind him. He was jumping at shadows. Staring after the poor man like he was going to come back and break the door down. If he wasn’t careful some innocent charity collector would be dragged off to Aredian’s desk and interrogated.  
  
He flipped the leaflet open, looking for something,  _anything_  to do, and started as he saw a post-it note stuck on the inside.  
  
‘Round the back, three minutes. Bring anything you can't do without.’  
  
He was careful not to react as he pocketed the note and dropped the leaflet onto the top of his junk mail pile. Then he gathered together a few things and headed for kitchen, where the back door was.  
  
It was strange to simulate the motions of making a cup of coffee. He forgot which order it was supposed to be done in twice, too busy thinking of making it look realistic to remember what realistic was.  
  
Minutes seemed longer somehow, now that he was waiting for something to happen, they stretched on and on. He knew that he was checking the wall clock too often to look casual about it, knew that he was making the worst cup of coffee in history (it would help if he remembered the coffee) but the restlessness that had settled over him suddenly had a purpose to it.  
  
When the clock ticked to the right time, he set the coffee mug down and strolled to the back door as normally as he could. Opening it up and walking down the tiny yard and to the back gate. He hadn't even reached it when it swung open and he saw Lancelot standing there, looking a bit anxious.  
  
“We weren’t sure you’d find the note in time,” Lance said, turning back to the car.   
  
“We’re not being watched?” Leon asked, looking around, but he couldn’t see anyone suspicious looking at all. There was just Lance’s car sitting in the back road behind the houses.  
  
“We're okay for now," Lance said, opening the driver's side door. “But we’ve only got a minute or so before they’re back. Get in.” Leon didn’t even question the order and they were driving away within seconds.   
  
“How much do you know?" Lancelot asked, when they were two blocks away, though his eyes were flicking nervously to the rear view mirror every few seconds.  
  
“Uther's dead," Leon started. "Arthur's been framed and someone's trying to stop the Department from doing anything about it."  
  
“Do you know where Arthur is?” Lancelot asked.  
  
“No,” Leon said honestly. Lancelot swore. It was the first time Leon had ever heard him curse. What he remembered of Lance was a man who was unfailingly polite, even in the face of prejudice and verbal abuse. He thought frantically for a second, staring out of the window at the shops they were passing. Lancelot had left a year after what had happened with Merlin, unable to continue working in the Department when he saw no honour in the way they worked. He had been almost painfully earnest in his last few days of work, trying to explain to Leon why he felt the need to leave, and Leon had understood, and so had Arthur.   
  
“I know  _who_  he's with, though."  
  
Lancelot turned to look at him, forgetting the rear view mirror for a minute and staring at him as though that comment is some kind of code. Leon ignored him, continuing to look out of the window, uncomfortable. He felt like he was betraying a confidence, though he hadn’t said anything incriminating.  
  
“Could you get in touch with him again?” Lance asked.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Good,” Lance said turning back to the road completely again, some of the tension falling from his shoulders. “We’re going to need his help.”  
  
When Lancelot led Leon down the darkened stairway, Leon didn’t know what he was expecting. He might have had some half formed images, taken from a life watching the wrong sort of films. A strange conglomerate of  _The Matrix_  and  _Terminator_.   
  
The door swung open, though, and suddenly everything was light. A neat, cleanly decorated room, a large glass topped table in the centre of the room, and leather-looking chairs surrounding it. It almost looked like something out of a magazine.   
  
“Sorry about the mess,” Lance said, as though that was really the most important thing when Leon had just slipped the watch of government agents and they seemed to be fighting some sort of conspiracy. “We’ve been a little busy in the past few days.”  
  
There wasn’t any mess, not really. The place had a few books out of place, and some papers (which looked strangely like the blueprints for the Department HQ) on the table, being pored over by a young woman with blonde hair, half of which seemed to be falling out of a messy bun, falling around her face. She glanced up as Leon entered, offering him a wide eyed smile. She looked familiar, like an actor on the TV whose name you never caught, but who seemed to be in everything.  
  
“Hello,” she said cheerily. “You must be Leon.”  
  
“Uh… yes. And you are?” Leon asked, already sort of regretting the question.   
  
“Elena,” she said with the exact same chipper tone of voice. “Lovely to meet you.” She offered a hand, which Leon took, a little bemused, and when he shook it, he winced as she gripped it a little too hard and pumped it up and down enthusiastically.  
  
“Lance?” he asked, rubbing his hand.  
  
“We think someone’s trying to take over the world,” Lance said, with a sympathetic smile. “It’s… complicated.  
  
“It’s not  _that_  complicated,” Elena said, rolling her eyes. “There’s this collection of things, and if a magic user can get them all together they get some sort of power boost, or something, meaning that they become pretty much the most powerful person in the universe, and someone’s going after them. Only we don’t know who, and we don’t know how many they’ve got. Simple really.” She smiled again and went back to the blueprints. “We know they got one from Uther before they killed him, or after they killed him. And there’s one in the Department too. We just don’t know how they’re going to get it out. I’ve been looking for faults in the security, but I can’t see any. You know, you guys really worked hard at making this impenetrable.”  
  
“Elena’s a…” Lance paused. “She’s good with things like this.”  
  
“What he means to say,” Elena provided, stretching her arms over her head. One of them caught on the light shade, catching her sleeve in it so she had to try and shake it out. Leon waited patiently as she shook it and then remembered that she had been in the middle of a sentence. “What Lance means to say is that I’m a thief. Not that Daddy approves.”  
  
“You’ve probably seen her father,” Lance provided. Leon thought about it for a moment, trying to put Elena’s face in context. He had seen her before, but where. She had looked less rumpled then, more-- the answer struck.  
  
“The former prime minister?” Leon asked, eyes widening.  
  
“Yes, that’s him.” Elena agreed. “Very useful. People don’t mind letting me into most places. Means I can case places without it ever seeming strange.” She nodded again. “But, as I was saying, I just can’t see a decent way to steal from the Department vaults. I could probably get in, but getting out would be a nightmare. Admittedly, they will have magic on their side, but you’ve thought of that as well.” She shrugged before sagging back into a seat in a highly unladylike manner.  
  
“That is the idea of a vault,” Leon pointed out.   
  
“Well, obviously,” she said, before leaning forward to look at the plans again. “It’s just so irritating. Usually I’m good at this.”  
  
Leon decided that the best thing for his sanity would probably be to leave her to it, so he did, following Lance into a seat on the other end of the table.  
  
“Our real problem is that we don’t know who we’re looking for,” Lance said. “Elena brought us the information, sort of. Someone asked her to steal something, but she knew something was up. She remembered me from when we had that scare at Downing Street, though God knows how she found me. I’ve found that it’s better not to ask. They contacted her anonymously. Apparently that’s the way these things are done. So that’s no good  
  
“We’ve managed to find three thefts so far, where one of the items stolen matches what we’re looking for, but no one’s even got a description of the thieves. I thought, after Uther’s death, that we might be able to work with you but…” Lance sighed again scowling at the table top. “I don’t like to ask Gwen, now. If they’ve already got rid of you without us even communicating, then putting her in that position. It would be dangerous.”  
  
Leon didn’t know what to say to that, he shoved a hand into his pocket, wrapping it around the small plastic cuboid he found.  
  
What  _was_  that? He wondered, trying to identify it by touch alone. He couldn’t remember having put anything in his pockets that day. Only Gwen had…  
  
He sat up straight as he remembered. The talk with Aredian and his subsequent suspension had pushed everything out of his mind. But, before he had gone in there, there had been a conversation with Gwen, and she had given him something.  
  
“You want information about the night Uther was killed,” he said, looking at Lance. A smile spread across his face, and he couldn’t quite hold it back.   
  
“You have some?” Lance straightened up again, and even Elena glanced up with an inquisitive expression.  
  
“How would the CCTV footage from that night be?” he asked. “I had Gwen get it for me before everything happened.” Leon pulled the flash drive from his pocket and held it up over the table, flipping it around and around between his thumb and forefinger. Lance looked at it in astonishment, honest joy spreading across his face.  
  
“I’ll get my laptop,” he said, hurrying out of the room so fast that he almost tripped over his own feet.  
  
Elena beamed at him and Leon felt himself smile back, trying to forget that she was a thief and a stranger.  
  
The footage wasn’t exactly good.  
  
“Magical interference,” Lance said, huffing out a deep breath in disappointment. All they could make out really were blurry grey figures crossing the screen. They didn’t seem to be trying to hide. “Of course, they’d know about the cameras.”  
  
Every frame seemed to be the same, watching the three of them go up and into Uther’s suite. The three of them watched the door open and Uther turn in astonishment, mouth half open to call for his guards. Then there was a brief flicker where the picture cleared up for barely a moment before everything went dark.  
  
“Go back,” Leon said, leaning forward. Lance was already doing so, even as the words left Leon’s mouth, going back frame by frame, or as closely as he could.   
  
Darkness, darkness, and then, one single shot in clear colour, barely noticeable when the video played properly.   
  
“They must have had to drop the spell to blur the image, to cast the one to take the cameras out,” Lance said, but Leon was barely listening. Of the three people besides Uther in the room, two of them were turned away from the camera, just dark heads of hair and anonymous looking back. But one of the figures was caught turning away from the camera, her face captured.  
  
“Morgause,” Leon said. His heart began to pound. “That’s Morgause.”  
  
“Who?” Elena asked.  
  
“The new temporary head of the department,” Leon explained. “That’s her.”  
  
“You mean they have someone on the inside?” Elena stared, her mouth hanging open a little. She gaped for a long moment before her shoulders sagged in utter defeat and her face became devastated. “That changes  _everything_! She could take it any time. She could have already taken it.”  
  
“Clearance would take a while to go through,” Leon said, a little optimistically. Then he remembered something. “Shit. She’s getting them to declare a state of emergency. She’ll have access to  _everything_ , the vaults, the research department, the detention centre. Everything. That’s what this morning was about. She didn’t even care about killing people, she just wanted to make it seem like we were under attack.”  
  
“We took too long,” Lance said. Leon could tell from the clench of his jaw that he was cursing internally, but he kept it inside and nodded. “We’ve lost that one.”  
  
“Not necessarily,” Elena told him. “If she’s working there then she might not have had a chance to take it out of the building yet. It’s probably still on her, or in her office.”  
  
“But we can’t get in there to check,” Lance said.  
  
“Gwen could,” Leon said, hating himself even as he said the words. Lance turned to him angrily, losing some of that iron control and optimism.  
  
“We can’t ask that of her!” he snapped. “It’s too dangerous. If Morgause found her then… after what she did to Uther.”  
  
“We don’t know that was her, there were two other people with her,” Elena provided helpfully. Lance glared at her as well.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I’d be happy to do it myself,” Elena said with a shrug. “But someone’s bound to notice me if I go poking around the head of department’s office. Gwen’s already on the inside. She’s got a reason to be there. There have got to be files in there that Morgause doesn’t know about. She’d just have to pretend to…”  
  
“This isn’t up for discussion-” Lance said.  
  
“She’d say yes,” Leon said, because someone had to. “If it would help, she’d say yes.”  
  
“We could ask Elyan,” Lance suggested. “He’s just as likely to be-“  
  
“No he isn’t,” Leon said. “You know as well as I do, we only go into offices when we’re called in. If he’s found in there on his own, then there’ll be questions.”  
  
“And there won’t be with Gwen?”  
  
“Not as many,” Elena said. “I’ve pretended to be in admin  _loads_  of times. No one really notices you if you’re looking through filing cabinets… or computers. It’s easy.”  
  
“I’m not going to put her into that sort of danger,” Lance said. “This is all based on a guess anyway.”  
  
“I know you’re trying to protect her,” Elena said, sounding oddly thoughtful, “but I don’t think I’d like to find out later that there was something I could have done to stop something terrible from happening, and someone stopped me from being able to do it  _just_  because they wanted to protect me.”  
  
Lance stared at her for a long moment and Leon just waited. He had always known that there had been something between Gwen and Lance, way back from the first time Lancelot had come into the Department, earnest and far too kindly spoken for an agent, really. And apparently they had kept in touch after Lance had left the Department. It wasn’t that surprising, not really. Lance hadn’t left under a cloud of betrayal and outrage, like Merlin and Gwaine. He had resigned quite officially, and left through the front door with his head held high.  
  
Though he did associate with thieves these days, apparently.  
  
“Fine,” Lance said, deflating. “I’ll ask her.”  
  
The three of them froze as they heard steps on the stairs outside. Leon reached for a gun he no longer had. Elena’s hand went inside her jacket, and Leon saw a flash of metal that was most likely a knife.  
  
Lance just stood up, but Leon could tell from his stance that he was ready to grab anything at hand if necessary.  
  
There was a heavy, banging knock on the door, that made the table rattle a little and Elena sighed with relief as the tension left Lance’s shoulders.   
  
“It’s Percival,” she said by way of explanation. “He always knocks like that. He doesn’t really know that he’s doing it.”  
  
“Percival?” Leon asked, watching as Lance went to slide the door bolts back.   
  
“The charity collector,” Lance said with a quirk of a smile.  
  
“Right,” Leon said with a nod, just as the door swung open again and, just as Lance had said, the charity collector from earlier walked in.  
  
“Sorry,” Percival said, “They watched me go down another two streets after that. And then they seemed to realise that he’d gone, so they stopped.”  
  
“They didn’t realise you had anything to do with it?” Leon asked, a little concerned.  
  
“No.” Percival said. He didn’t elaborate further.  
  
*  
  
Leon watched Lance make the call to Gwen, feeling guilty even as he did so. He knew the moment that she picked up. He could hear the faint sound of her voice from the receiver.  
  
Lance set it all out clearly, emphasising the danger and that it wasn’t one hundred percent necessary that Gwen do this. She said yes, as Leon had known she would, and then she said yes again when Lance asked if she was sure and yes again when he asked her again. By the time Lance hung up, Gwen, even muffled and tinny, sounded more irritated at him than worried about risking life and limb.  
  
He didn’t say anything after Lance put the phone down. He didn’t really think there was anything he could say.   
  
Perhaps Arthur would have been able to say something and make it not sound like a useless platitude. Perhaps Merlin would have been able to say something optimistic and make it sound like it might come true. Gwaine would have said something hideously inappropriate and somehow made it sound utterly acceptable.  
  
Leon just nodded and watched as Lance nodded back, looking closer to broken than Leon had ever seen him.  
  
Then Elena dropped a coffee mug onto the table and the shattering sound made them all jump worse than if it had been a gunshot.  
  
*  
  
No one noticed Gwen these days, especially not when things were this busy. Uther dead and a state of emergency declared meant that everyone was very busy – or trying to look very busy. They said ‘hi’ but no one looked at her twice. She was just a part of the furniture, moving around the offices, picking up files. She wasn’t even sure that most of the people who worked in the Department knew what her job was. They accepted her wherever she went because they assumed that was where she was supposed to be. She’d never been more thankful for her strange invisibility.  
  
Uther’s office – Morgause’s office now, she supposed – was in the centre of the building, through the maze of rooms and offices that housed the rest of the Department. She’d been there thousands of times before, to pick things up, drop things off and sit in meetings. Uther had always kept it startlingly crisp and clean, with no personal touches. Most of the others in the building had photographs on their desk, or something to make it seem like home, but Uther simply had his papers, his computer and his stationery. There was a bookcase covering the back wall, but the only books on it were texts on magic and legend.  
  
She drew a deep breath and opened the door, trying to look as though she was supposed to be there.  
  
Morgause hadn’t had time to change much around. It still looked like Gwen remembered it, though a little rougher around the edges. Some of the books had obviously been taken out and put back again – they were no longer in strictly regimented lines, but a little uneven – and there was a curious statue on the desk, like a woman with her hands raised up to the sky. It had no features or detail to it, but something about it unsettled Gwen.  
  
It felt as though the thing was watching her, although it had no eyes, and the posture. Gwen was certain that if it had been given a mouth, it would have been screaming.  
  
She shook off the feeling and headed over to the desk, walking around it cautiously. She had never been on this side of it before. Uther had always had his office clearly delineated. He was on this side, you were on the other.   
  
It felt intrusive, walking into his side, more intrusive than opening the door and coming in. Even if Morgause had already been sitting in his chair and reading through his books, it felt wrong for Gwen to do the same thing.  
  
She frowned at the chair for a second, before electing to kneel instead, going straight for the drawers. The bottom one was still filled with files, nothing unusual, the second one was stationery, and the top drawer… Gwen tugged at it, but it didn’t budge. Locked. She frowned momentarily, before standing up and grabbing a paperclip from the desk-tidy. The lock wasn’t exactly complicated, and she had always wanted to try this.  
  
It took longer than she had anticipated, longer than it ever seemed to take in films, and every second that the clock on the wall ticked out made her feel that little bit more desperate, and every footstep outside made her freeze and wait, breathless.  
  
But, probably more through luck than anything else, the lock finally clicked into place and she was able to pull the drawer open. Gwen drew it out and looked at what she found in confusion.  
  
The stone she was looking for wasn’t there, instead there were what looked like technical diagrams, annotated in Gaius’ almost illegible handwriting. She looked at them for a long moment, but she couldn’t make out a word of what they said, or what they showed. She felt around into every corner of the drawer carefully, but there was nothing there.  
  
She shut the drawer, and began to look around the rest of the room. She crossed to the filing cabinet, but the drawers opened easily and there was nothing in there but files. She was running out of places to look, and time was ticking past. She needed to get out of here.  
  
She stood up.  
  
“Looking for something?” a voice asked from behind her.  
  
Gwen froze, not quite trusting herself to turn around. She couldn’t afford to look guilty.  
  
“The Framwell file, from last week,” she said, hoping that her voice wasn’t shaking as much as she thought it was.  
  
“And you needed it so badly that you came into my office without permission?” Morgause asked.  
  
“I’m sorry, Ms Treherne. Mr Pendragon never minded if I came in here to get files.”  
  
“I’m not Mr Pendragon,” Morgause said. “And I don’t appreciate people spying on me.”  
  
“I’m not spying on you,” Gwen said quickly. “I was just looking for a file. I knew that you were busy, and I… didn’t want to bother you.” She finally gathered up the courage to turn around. Morgause looked like a different person from the cool, pleasant person who had introduced herself to the employees earlier. Her eyes were hard and cold. Gwen smiled as calmly as she could, but there was something about that glare that seemed to cut right through her.  
  
“Have you found it?” Morgause asked. Gwen opened the second drawer of the cabinet and made a show of getting the right file.  
  
“Right here,” Gwen said. “I’ll be going then, shall I?” she asked.  
  
“That might be a good idea,” Morgause said, her voice as ice cold as her eyes. “And next time, ask.”  
  
“Yes, Ms Treherne,” Gwen said before hurrying out of the door, struggling to keep her breath under control and her legs from shaking too badly for her to walk.  
  
She closed the door behind her and walked as quickly as she could back to her own desk. The whole way she felt the prickle of being watched on the back of her neck  
  
When she got to her desk one of the lights on her phone was blinking. She glanced at it out of habit rather than curiosity. The name next to the light was Uther. His office phone.  
  
Gwen paused half way to sitting down. She remembered Lance’s voice on the other end of the phone, sounding so earnest. Morgause had killed Uther, she had killed him and then she had taken his job, and she was trying to do something worse than that.  
  
Gwen sat down properly and picked up the phone, hitting the button that would connect her to that conversation.  
  
“And you’re sure it’s them?” Morgause’s voice asked.  
  
“Positive.” Gwen froze. She knew that voice. But… it  _couldn’t be_. Perhaps this was an innocent conversation. Perhaps- her thoughts were cut off by what came next. “I recognise Merlin’s magic from when he left. He isn’t even trying to hide it. Arthur will be with him and they’ll have the final stone.”  
  
Gwen gasped out loud, her voice making a noise that her brain couldn’t form into words.  
  
Morgana.  
  
“What was that?” Morgana asked. Gwen clasped a hand over her mouth, trying to stop even  _breathing_.  
  
“What was what?” Morgause asked.  
  
“I thought I heard something.”  
  
“Probably interference on the line,” Morgause answered.  
  
Gwen could hear her heart thudding in her chest, she wondered if Morgana would hear that as well.  
  
“Take the thralls,” Morgause said, “get the stone. Kill anyone who tries to stop you, even if it’s Pendragon or his little warlock. Not that I imagine you’ll have a problem doing that.”  
  
“No, it’ll be my pleasure,” Morgana said. Gwen wanted to make another noise again, she could feel it, rising like a bubble up her throat.  
  
“Call me when you have it,” Morgause said. “Good luck, sister.”  
  
 _Sister?_  Gwen thought dazed. She was so thrown that she didn’t even hear Morgana hang up, but she was suddenly aware that it was just her and Morgause on the line.  
  
“Morgana?” Morgause asked. “Are you still there?”  
  
Gwen put the receiver down as quietly as possible, then took a deep breath. She had to find a way to tell Lancelot, and a way to warn Arthur and Merlin.  
  
*  
  
The phone call came back an hour later, and Lance leapt for the receiver before it had completed a single ring.  
  
Leon watched Lancelot’s face as he listened to Gwen’s report.  
  
“It wasn’t there?” Lancelot asked. Leon let his head thud back onto the seat. He could see Percival, opposite him frowning just as much. Elena sagged forward and sighed deeply, her breath sending the flyaway tendrils of her hair up in small waves.  
  
“What? You shouldn’t have done that, it’s too much of a… What? You’re sure?  
  
“But she’s – right, I understand. I’ll tell Leon, he might be able to contact them. Do you think she suspects you?  
  
“Get out of there. Get Elyan and get out of there.  
  
“I love you, too. I’ll see you tonight.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up, taking a moment to compose himself before turning to the three people who were trying very hard to look like they hadn’t been listening to that last bit. At least, Leon was trying that, the other two didn’t seem to care much.  
  
“She couldn’t find the stone, but I suppose you heard that bit,” Lancelot said. They nodded. “But she overheard a conversation between Morgause and one of her accomplices.” He hesitated and Leon waited as patiently as he could, leaning forwards in his seat. “It was… It was Morgana.”  
  
“Morgana?” Leon asked. Of all the things he had been expecting to hear, it hadn’t been that. “You’re sure. It was Morgana.”  
  
“Morgause called her by name,” Lancelot said. He sounded a little shell-shocked himself. Both Elena and Percival were looking between them with confusion.  
  
“Who’s Morgana?” Elena asked.  
  
“Uther’s adopted daughter, she sort of works for the Department,” Leon said. “She grew up with Arthur.” He turned to Lancelot again. “But the Interim head of the Department might have an entirely innocent reason for calling Morgana.”  
  
“The conversation Gwen overheard wasn’t innocent,” Lancelot said. “You said earlier that you might be able to contact Arthur. Were you telling the truth?”  
  
“I think I can, why?”  
  
“Because you need to warn him that Morgana’s coming to take the stone. And she’s going to kill him, Merlin and anyone else who gets in her way.”  
  
*  
  
A phone began to ring.  
  
“Merlin, get that, would you?” Arthur said, trying to find a way to lie on the bed that didn’t make his injuries burn.  
  
“It’s your phone,” Merlin said sleepily. “You get it.”  
  
“It’s not my phone,” Arthur said with a frown, “you fried my phone, for my own good, remember.” There was a satisfied chuckle from Gwaine where he lay on the sofa. “Shut up.”  
  
“If it’s not your phone, why’s it coming from your trousers?” Merlin asked.  
  
“It’s not…” Arthur paused, patting his trouser pocket. “It  _is_  coming from my trousers.”  
  
“Told you,” Merlin replied.   
  
Arthur pulled the phone out of his trousers, confused. It wasn’t his, then whose was it? He dangled it above his face for a moment, trying to focus.  
  
As soon as he saw it, he sat bolt upright. He looked over at Gwaine, who was staring at him with just as much amazement.  
  
“That’s Freya’s,” Gwaine said. “Who’s calling?” Arthur looked down at the display. He didn’t recognise the number, so he shrugged. “Do you think we should answer it? It might be…  _them_.”  
  
“If it is, then I can convince them to try and get the stone,” Arthur said with a pause. “We can lead them into a trap.”  
  
“Or you could tell them how to find us, so they could kill us all,” Gwaine pointed out.  
  
“It could be Freya,” Merlin said. “She might have got away.” Neither Arthur nor Gwaine answered that, Arthur didn’t even dare look away from the phone, in case he said something.  
  
“We’ve got to answer it,” Arthur said, after a moment. “It’s all we can do.”  
  
“Wai-” Merlin said, but Arthur was already answering, lifting the phone to his ear.  
  
“Hello?” he said.   
  
“Arthur?” Leon’s voice asked.  
  
“Leon!” Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, but in the pit of his stomach, he felt a stab of disappointment. “Are you all right? What’s happening? What happened with the address I gave you?”  
  
“We don’t have time for that. Arthur… I’m sorry, I really am. It’s Morgana.” Leon sounded shaky, though Arthur couldn’t imagine anything ever shaking the man.  
  
“What about Morgana? Has something happened to her? Leon?” he asked. He saw Merlin staring at him, looking almost guilty.  
  
“It was her, and Morgause, and some other guy we don’t know.” Arthur replayed the sentence in his head, but he still couldn’t make out any more than before.  
  
“What was her?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Your father, Arthur, Morgana was one of the people who killed your father.”  
  
Arthur needed to sit down. He might have said that out loud, because Merlin was telling him that he was sitting down, like it was something really obvious, when clearly it wasn’t.  
  
“She can’t have been…” Arthur said.  
  
“Arthur, we’re sure about this,” Leon said. And Arthur could place his tone now. Apologetic. That was it.   
  
“You’re wrong.”  
  
“We’re not wrong, Arthur. Gwen heard Morgause talking to her.” Leon said.  
  
“Who’s Morgause?” Arthur demanded. He caught sight of Merlin’s face turning deathly pale. “Leon… it can’t have been her. I was there, I would remember… if it was Morgana I would remember. I would  _remember_.”  
  
“Arthur, there’s no time,” Leon said. “She’s coming for the stone, and for you. She’s going to kill you. You have to get out of there. You and Merlin. Where are you? We’ll come and pick you up.”  
  
“Who’s we?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Lancelot, and some others. Just tell me where you are.” Arthur gave their location, feeling numb. “Good, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Turn right out of the hotel, we’ll meet you along that road somewhere.”  
  
Whatever else Leon had to say was cut off as the fire alarm went off, and suddenly every other sound was drowned out. Arthur didn’t bother to say goodbye, he just hit the button to end the call and turned to Merlin, who was standing up.   
  
“Who’s Morgause?” he asked. Merlin frowned at him.  
  
“Just someone I met once. We need to go, Arthur. This fire alarm isn’t a coincidence. It’s designed to get everyone out of the building. Someone’s trying to smoke us out.”  
  
“Guys,” Gwaine said. But Arthur didn’t look at him, and Merlin was too busy staring back at Arthur.  
  
“Tell me who she is, Merlin!” Arthur demanded.  
  
“She’s Morgana’s sister, her half sister.” Merlin admitted reluctantly.  
  
“And she’s a witch?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Powerful?”  
  
“Yes, they both are.”  
  
“Guys,” Gwaine said again, ignored once more.  
  
“And she’s not on our list because?” Arthur demanded. Had Merlin been protecting her?  
  
“Because I didn’t think she had  _that much_  against your father,” Merlin said. “When I met her she was angry, but she wasn’t trying to  _kill_  anyone. She just wanted…”  
  
“ _Arthur! Merlin!_ ”  
  
“What, Merlin? What did she want?” Arthur demanded.  
  
“Power, she wanted power… and Morgana.”  
  
“Another thing you kept from me for my own  _good_?” Arthur asked. Merlin frowned, but nodded. “And what about Morgana?”  
  
“ _Seriously. You two!_ ”  
  
“She’s a witch. But I didn’t know she was capable of this, I swear to you Arthur. She’d barely realised she had magic when I left. I thought that it would be all right. I thought she’d cope.”  
  
“You think that Leon’s right, don’t you?” Arthur said. “You think she was there when my father died.”  
  
“I think…” Merlin said. “I think she might have been the one who did it.”  
  
“Clever, Merlin,” a new voice said. Arthur and Merlin turned to see Morgana standing in the doorway, smiling serenely. Arthur caught her gaze for a second and had to look away. That wasn’t his sister. There was something broken there. “I always liked you.”  
  
Arthur looked at Gwaine, who was standing held at gun point by three of the same sort of men as earlier, with the same glazed expressions.   
  
“I was trying to say, there were footsteps, in the corridor… heading  _away_  from the fire escape.” Gwaine said. “I think it might be someone trying to kill us.” Arthur stared.  
  
“I liked you too,” Merlin said softly. “But I think I’m over that now.”  
  
“Ah, an attempt at bravado,” Morgana said. “Almost sweet.” She looked around the room and her eyes fell on the bedside table where the stone lay. Arthur followed her gaze and lunged for it, but before he could get half the way a thrall stepped in front of him and threw him back into the wall. He watched as Morgana walked over to it and picked it up. “Sorry, but I think that belongs to me.”  
  
“It belongs to Freya,” Merlin said. Morgana raised an eyebrow.  
  
“The Bastet?” Morgana asked. “It used to belong to her, when she was alive. Now it’s finder’s keepers.”  
  
Arthur didn’t think he had ever seen Merlin look angrier than at that moment. His eyes glowed gold, but Morgana just looked at him.  
  
“Magic doesn’t work on the stones,” she said, “it can’t affect them at all. So you can’t snatch it out of my hands. And before you try to be clever and hit me instead, I suggest you look at your friends. If anything happens to me the thralls will shoot and they will die.”  
  
“You’re going to kill us anyway,” Gwaine said. “We all know that.”  
  
“Oh yes,” Morgana agreed. “It’s nice that you understand that. Uther didn’t get it until the very end. He still thought that I was too  _naïve_  to do it. He thought he could talk me out of it. He’d spent all my life telling me how  _evil_  I was and torturing my kind, and then he expected me to have mercy. He expected  _mercy_.”  
  
“Well, I definitely don’t expect that,” Gwaine said. Morgana looked at him.  
  
“What do you expect?” she asked.  
  
“Well, I always wanted to go out with a bang,” Gwaine said, hefting his bag on his shoulder.  
  
*  
  
Arthur had forgotten that Gwaine did this.  
  
No, that wasn’t right.   
  
Arthur had remembered that Gwaine did this. He had remembered it as an anecdote no one ever talked about, an amusing list of stories that he could have brought up down the pub, if there had ever been anyone down the pub other than him and the alcohol (and Leon, but Leon only ever turned up when the alcohol was too sunk in for Arthur to remember how to tell stories at all). He didn't remember how it felt to  _live_  through Gwaine doing this.  
  
His back was so hot, almost scorching, and the only reason he hadn't stop dropped and rolled to put out the fire that must have caught hold of his jacket ( _Gwaine's_  jacket really, which was just as well, because if Gwaine's fondness for fireworks had ruined any of Arthur's clothes he might have had to kill the man) was because his desire to die in a fire slightly exceeded his desire to be crushed to death by falling masonry or to fall into the hands of the people ( _Morgana_ , his mind provided, repeating it over and over again to hammer it home) who were coming after them.  
  
Somewhere on his right, Gwaine was running just as fast. He started to pull ahead and Arthur sped up accordingly. Damned if he was going to die being shown up by bloody Gwaine.  
  
To his left, Merlin was yelling something that couldn’t be heard over the roar of the explosion and the fire, still ringing in his ears. He couldn’t look for long, but Merlin had his 'are you just stupid?' look on his face.  
  
Suddenly Merlin was grabbing him, dragging Arthur’s left arm back and pulling him off balance so that he teetered on one foot for a moment. Arthur grabbed Gwaine by reflex and the three of them jolted to a sudden stop.   
  
“Are you crazy?” Arthur yelled over the sound from behind them, rapidly going closer. “You’re going to kill us all.”  
  
“No. I’m not,” Merlin said, yanking Arthur closer, then reaching out to pull Gwaine close too. There must be some suicidal in joke or pact that Arthur had missed in the past four years, because Gwaine, as soon as Merlin touched him, just moved, seemingly unworried by the falling building and the death that was almost close enough to touch.  
  
Arthur could see the fire coming towards them, moving treacle-slow, like Merlin had slowed down time, or something, which was an insane idea; no magic user could do that. Arthur knew the limitations of magic as well as he knew the back of his hand. They'd been hammered into his head throughout his life.   
  
‘No magic is irreversible. Magic works around the laws of physics, it does not break them. Magic cannot undo the past.’  
  
Time was out of bounds for magic. You could step outside of it for a minute or two, but you couldn’t affect the flow of the world.  
  
But the fire should have hit them by now, Arthur knew. The explosion had gone on too long, and the fire was creeping along. They should have been swallowed by the flames before they even made it to the first door.  
  
He glanced at Merlin, who was holding out a hand and saying words that Arthur couldn’t hear. He glanced at Gwaine, who just nodded back to Merlin with a sure look.  _Trust him,_  Arthur could almost hear.   
  
Then, all at once, the fire sped up again and as it was about to hit them it... didn’t.  
  
It flowed around the three of them like they were encased in a giant bubble, rippling blue where it seemed to hit the bubble’s edge.  
  
“What the-?” Arthur asked, only the realising that the sound had been cut off at all.  
  
“Magic,” Merlin said, exasperated. “I thought we’d covered that.”  
  
“It does come in useful from time to time,” Gwaine said.  
  
“But you just...” Arthur didn’t say it, didn’t let himself put the words onto his tongue. "Right, magic. You know, one day that excuse is going to get old."  
  
“Arthur,” Merlin said. His voice was low and soft, almost liquid, and Arthur knew that tone too well for comfort. It was the tone used for early morning confidences and those times, long past, when it was just the two of them with the world shut out. It was Merlin's pillow talk voice, his cajoling voice, his touchy-feely voice.  
  
“Yes, Merlin?” he said back, keeping his own voice abrupt. "Was there something you needed to say?"  
  
“Well,” Merlin looked wary when he caught Arthur's eye, but he was not quite willing to keep his opinions to himself. "It was just that... It was Morgana."  
  
“I can recognise my own step-sister when I see her, thank you." Gwaine was being mercifully silence, showing some of the tact that he so rarely used. Arthur couldn't bring himself to look at him though. There might be sympathy in his expression, and sympathy from Gwaine would be too great an insult to be borne. “What about her?”  
  
“Are you alright?” Merlin hazarded.  
  
“I’m fine, Merlin,” Arthur lied. “We already knew it was someone who could get inside information. It's not that big a leap." Apart from how it was, because it was  _Morgana_ , who had just looked at him with such  _hatred_  and who had just confessed to ripping his father to pieces.  
  
“But she is your-”  
  
“We're not going to talk about this,” Arthur said, clapping Merlin on the shoulder and straightening up. Because they weren’t, not ever again. This conversation was never going to happen. Even if they killed Morgana and stood in a pool of her blood, they were not going to talk about it. They weren’t going to talk about the fact that he had ever trusted her, or that she was  _family_ , because he was not about to cry into Merlin's shoulder about it. “And if you do talk about it, I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me, Merlin?"  
  
“Uh... yes?”  
  
“Good. Now, in case you hadn't noticed, it seems to be a little safer out there, and we should probably get going before someone's sent in here to look for us. Don't you think?"  
  
They left the building in uncomfortable silence. Well, Arthur did. Gwaine left the building whistling a little under his breath and commenting on how a good fire always made things look simpler, didn’t you think?  
  
“You two do realise that this means they have all of the stones,” Gwaine said after a minute.  
  
“It had crossed my mind,” Arthur agreed, wondering when people were going to stop pointing out the bleeding obvious.  
  
“So essentially, from here on in it’s not so much a question of  _if_  we die, as a question of  _when_.”  
  
“You’re welcome to run for the hills,” Arthur said. “Save your own skin. I’m sure we can handle it.”  
  
“You know your problem, Arthur," Gwaine said, swinging an arm round Arthur's shoulders. "You just don't have the imagination. Why on earth would I leave now, just when it’s getting interesting?"  
  
“We're all crazy," Merlin said, sounding surprisingly okay for someone who had just almost been burnt to a crisp. "We're all mad, and we're going to die."  
  
“But at least we’ll go down together,” Gwaine said, raising his hand as if holding a drink. “One for all, and all that.”  
  
“We’re not the three buggering musketeers," Arthur said, shrugging Gwaine's arm off.  
  
“Pity,” Gwaine called out behind him. “I mean, I’ve never been a great fan of muskets, but the buggery I could really get behind... if you know what I mean."  
  
“Deaf Australian Wallabies would know what you meant!" Arthur said, turning. Gwaine just smirked back at him, hands stuck in his pockets, not blushing a little bit. Merlin, meanwhile, was biting his lips together to stop himself from laughing. "You know your problem, Gwaine?”  
  
“Enlighten me.”  
  
“You're just not funny."  
  
“And you don’t have a sense of humour.”  
  
“And you think everything’s a bloody joke.”  
  
“Life’s easier when you’re laughing...” Gwaine said, surprisingly serious. “You should try it some time. Might get rid of those frown lines you're wearing into your pretty face."  
  
“I laugh when things are funny," Arthur said. Gwaine patted him on the shoulder in mock sympathy as he went by. "I do... and I  _don't_  have wrinkles. He glared at Merlin who was smiling inanely (and inappropriately). "I don't."  
  
“Just a few," Merlin said with a shrug, "but they're very distinguished." Then he walked past too, and Arthur gaped at the burnt out shell of a building they had just come from, unable to quite come up with the words.  
  
“How did I end up stuck with you?” he asked.  
  
“I think I should be asking that," Merlin said. "After all, one of you just followed me home one day, and the other turned up on my doorstep."  
  
“You must have done something very good, to deserve a reward like that," Gwaine commented. "Well, and then done something very bad, to deserve Arthur."  
  
“If I did something that bad I’m sure you had something to do with it.”  
  
Arthur couldn't deal with it anymore. The banter, the  _cheer_ , the thrice damned way they  _looked_  at each other, smiling and  _looking_  and smiling.  
  
“Does anyone actually have an idea of where we’re going?” he asked, making them both turn around to look at him for a change.  
  
“Uh... I'm just following Gwaine," Merlin said, helpfully.  
  
“I was just walking away from the giant bomb site,” Gwaine said with a shrug. "You went first," he gestured at Arthur.  
  
“I -"  _don't have a clue_ , Arthur was about to say, but the words dried up on his tongue. "This way," he said, pointing down a side street. "Definitely this way." He remembered Leon telling him which way to go, but he couldn’t remember anymore. It was lost in thoughts of  _Morgana_  and his father. But it was always best to be decisive, even if you were being decisively wrong.  
  
“And you’re sure about that?” Merlin asked.  
  
“Of course I’m sure.” Arthur snapped.  
  
“Realising of course, that now would be a rubbish time to get lost, really, as we're going to have to work out where Morgana's taken the stones, and work out how to get there and how to stop her and we might need to get there really quite fast,” Merlin continued, as though Arthur hadn’t just  _said_  that he was sure, one hundred percent sure (if you rounded up a little).  
  
“No Merlin, I hadn't considered  _any_  of that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, otherwise the end of the world and our imminent deaths would surely have  _slipped my mind_."  
  
“Just checking,” Merlin said. “Sometimes you do forget the important things.”  
  
“Shut up, Merlin.”  
  
“Oh, it is lovely to have the old team back together again,” Gwaine said, flipping his hair out of his eyes in a way that was far more annoying than attractive, Arthur was sure. Definitely more annoying. "Just like old times."  
  
“Remember that time when I shot you in the foot?” Arthur asked. Gwaine winced and nodded. "Good."  
  
They had barely walked half a block before a car pulled up next to them.  
  
Gwaine stepped away, his hand going to the small of his back, where Arthur could see a suspicious looking lump. That answered the question of what else had been in that bag then. Not just the explosives.  
  
Merlin’s hand was already extending when the window wound down and Arthur found himself face to face with Leon, who had never looked quite that relieved in all the time Arthur had known him.  
  
“Get in,” Leon said and on his other side, Arthur could see Lancelot behind the wheel. “Quickly.”  
  
Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine climbed into the back. Pleasantries of some sort were exchanged, though Arthur couldn’t have said what, even under threat of death. His mind switched off, because Leon and Lancelot were here, looking professional, and like they knew what they were doing, and they knew where they were going. So Arthur wasn’t stumbling around blindly anymore.  
  
He let his head drop back against the head rest, staring out of the window, and let his mind drift.  
  
*

The car journey could have been five minutes or two hours, for all Arthur was paying attention. He was so far into himself that he was oblivious. Today seemed to have stretched on forever.  
  
He didn’t even notice that they had stopped until Merlin poked him in the side.  
  
“It’s dark,” he said stupidly, looking out of the car.  
  
“It’s been dark for hours,” Merlin said. “It was dark before we even left the hotel. It’s gone midnight now. Are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
“I’m fine, Merlin,” Arthur said, catching Merlin’s eyes. They held each other’s gaze for a second before Merlin nodded firmly. He looked, for a moment, almost wise. The idea was so alien that Arthur was suddenly very awake. He pulled himself out of the car and followed Leon and Lancelot up into the small flat.  
  
“Welcome to HQ,” Lancelot said.   
  
“We need-“ Arthur began, but Leon cut him off.  
  
“Some rest,” he said. “You won’t be any good like this. Get some sleep.”  
  
Arthur was dimly aware of a familiar looking blonde woman who waved. He waved back as he sat down on the sofa, and then there was some man who looked about seven feet tall in front of him. He stared for a moment, before sagging back into the cushions, determined that he was going to stay awake. They needed a plan.  
  
They needed…  
  
*  
  
Arthur woke up last, and he could tell by the expression on Gwaine's face that it was bad. He had never known the man to frown for longer than a few seconds before, but he was sitting on one of the chairs and glaring at his hands.  
  
Merlin was standing by the door looking vaguely sick and with a growing bruise creeping across his forehead.  
  
“They took it,” Arthur said.  
  
“Look on the bright side,” Gwaine said, looking up again and smiling suddenly, like someone had flicked a switch. “We’re still alive. We’ve got Merlin to thank for that, too.”  
  
“It was automatic,” Merlin said. He was watching Arthur curiously, “I’m good at shields. You’ve both given me a lot of practice over the years.”  
  
“I’ll bet,” Lancelot said, startling Arthur, who looked around and found himself the centre of attention. “Sorry, introductions are probably in order. This is Percival and Elena. Elena, Percival, these are Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine.”  
  
“Nice to meet you,” Elena said, sounding completely genuine. Arthur looked at her, a little bemused.  
  
“Thank you,” Arthur said, before turning to Merlin and repeating the words. He held Merlin’s gaze as firmly as he could. He wanted it to serve as a thank you for all the times before, as well, and he thought that Merlin kind of understood, because there was a quirk of a smile before his face fell back into perplexed irritation.  
  
“It’s just...” Merlin waved his hand at the room. “We were so close. We were almost ready to destroy it and then they  _stole it_." Arthur could feel the floor underneath him vibrating slightly, and from the look of other people’s faces, they could too. Gwaine reached out to touch Merlin's wrist and it stilled.  
  
“It’ll be fine,” Gwaine said.  
  
“We’re going to stop them,” Lancelot said. “We know who they are now. That means we can find them.”  
  
“You're missing the point," Arthur snapped, noticing as the pair turned back to them, that there was something under Gwaine's smile, something darker, and Merlin looked as though he was on his last legs. His hair stuck everywhere and the bags under his eyes. "The odds are overwhelmingly in their favour. They have whole  _armies_  of people who don’t seem to feel pain. They have three magic users, we have… Merlin. You should leave. Run. Go somewhere they won't find you. Survive. This isn't your fight.” He looked around at their faces. Saw Leon staring back at him, face set in determination. “I'm the one who dragged you into this. If I hadn't showed up on your doorstep, Merlin, then you... neither of you," he inclined his head to Gwaine, who was nodding back at him slowly, "would be here. You'd still be safe. And Leon…"  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” Leon said.  
  
Arthur wasn’t sure why Lancelot was here, or Percival or Elena, but when he turned to them, they stared him down until he sighed and looked away.  
  
“No one's safe,” Merlin said with a sigh.  
  
“They aren‘t going to kill the whole world.” Arthur said, “That would be ridiculous. And Morgana might be mad, but she’s not stupid. They’ll just go after those who oppose them.”  
  
“You’re not going to do this alone, Arthur. You miserable, honourable, stupid prick,” Merlin said with feeling.  
  
“To go up against them is certain death," he tried to make his point clear. This was his mess.  
  
“In my opinion, a far superior option to uncertain death," Gwaine said, cheery once more. “So wishy-washy." There was a grin of approval from Elena, and Percival nodded.  
  
“You hate my guts," Arthur pointed out, staring at Gwaine.  
  
“Yeah, sometimes,” Gwaine admitted. “But sometimes you’re not a complete nightmare. And Merlin would follow you into hell and back." Merlin blushed a rather disturbing shade of magenta. “And I trust his judgement.”  
  
Arthur nodded, slowly, pulling himself to his feet with a heavy breath. He looked at Merlin who gave a rather shaky grin.  
  
“To hell and back, right?” he said.  
  
“Then we’re going to need to find them,” Arthur said, glossing over the way his chest was suddenly tighter than before. Lancelot nodded. He felt Gwaine's hand smack him on the arm companionably. "Merlin, do you know anything about rituals like this?"  
  
“If Freya is – was – right about what they’re trying to do, then they’ll need some sort of magical nexus, a place where a lot of magical power can be pulled together.”  
  
“Find it,” Arthur said. Everyone was looking at Merlin now, which was a little better than them looking at Arthur, because at least now he wasn’t aware of their pity.  
  
“Arthur!” Merlin protested, his eyes growing wide. “That’s over a year’s worth of research, at least. And I don’t even know where to start. There's no way I'll ever be able to-"  
  
“Find a way." Merlin opened his mouth to protest again, but Arthur hadn’t finished yet. He lowered his voice, and he felt a bit silly doing this in front of the others, and Gwaine especially, but there had been a moment back there when Merlin had looked at him, a little abashed, and pledged his undying loyalty, when it had been like it  _used_  to be, only better. So Gwaine or not, Arthur was going to say this. "You always do." And, just like that Merlin's mouth closed and he nodded, standing as close to attention as Merlin ever got.  
  
*  
  
Merlin had commandeered the table, and the Internet connection. He seemed to be alternating between looking at online maps, and looking at strange websites with clip art pentacles at the top of them.  
  
“This is ridiculous,” he said, and Arthur watched as he stretched his arms above his head. “I don’t know whether I’m looking for leylines, sites of magical significance or what. It could be anywhere. Do you know that there are seventy two places of pagan interest within twenty miles of the Department? They’re supposed to be sacred places or something.”  
  
“You think that Morgause and the other two are going to one of those?” Arthur asked, leaning over Merlin’s shoulder.  
  
“I think that they could be going anywhere. I might as well say that they’re going to come here and perform the ritual. There’s just as much chance of that as anywhere else.  
  
Gwen and Elyan had arrived half an hour earlier, and Gwen came over to join them, smiling sadly.  
  
“Isn’t it working?” she asked, looking at the screen.  
  
“I don’t even know where to start,” Merlin admitted.  
  
“Well, what are you looking for?” Gwen asked.  
  
“Something that attracts magical energy, or generates it, or channels it. Something that will concentrate the magic so that they can use the stones to tap into it,” Merlin said. “These artefacts and rituals always take place somewhere like that. It means that the person performing the magic doesn’t have to be as powerful.”  
  
“Concentrates magic?” Gwen said thoughtfully.   
  
“Do you know somewhere?” Arthur asked. Gwen nodded, slowly.  
  
“Sorry, it’s just something Gaius was saying earlier today. He was talking about one of the pieces of equipment in the Research and Development section. He said that he was trying to make something that captured magical energy and converted it into electricity. But he couldn’t get it to work. It gathered the energy and focused it, but he couldn’t convert it.”  
  
Merlin stared at her.  
  
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.  
  
“Yes, he was talking to Morgana about it this… yesterday morning, I suppose it is now.”  
  
“Morgana?” Arthur asked. “Did she seem interested?”  
  
“Yes,” Gwen said slowly.   
  
“That’s it, then,” Merlin said, sitting back. “All this time looking and it’s right under our noses. They’re going to do this in the Department itself.”  
  
“But when?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Traditionally midnight or midday give the best results,” Merlin said. “It’s some archaic magical lore or other. I never understood that.”  
  
“During the day, the Department will be crawling with people,” Arthur pointed out.  
  
“It’ll be crawling during the day as well,” Leon said, stepping in. “Morgause declared a state of emergency, that means people will be working round the clock.”  
  
“Only people on the main floors, the R&D section won’t be,” Gwen said. “The state of emergency doesn’t affect them unless they’re working on something vital to national security, or something to do with a current case, and nothing to do with Uther’s death or the house you visited yesterday has ended up in R&D.”  
  
“So there’ll be floors full of people to see us coming, but no one to see what they’re doing?” Arthur asked. “That’s convenient.”  
  
“When something’s that convenient, I tend to think that’s because it’s been planned that way,” Elena said. “But you don’t need to worry about the people. They won’t see us.”  
  
“What do you mean they won’t see us?” Arthur asked.  
  
“Elena’s a cat-burglar in her spare time,” Lancelot said. Arthur blinked. So far in the few hours he had known her, he had seen Elena trip over a chair leg, her trousers and her own feet. “She says that she can get us into the Department.” He turned to Elena. “I thought you said that you couldn’t see a way out, though.”  
  
“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Elena said cheerfully. Everyone turned to her. “Well, once we’re in, either we win, in which case we don’t need to worry about getting out, or we die, in which case we don’t need to worry about getting out. Either way, we don’t need to worry about the exit strategy.” She said it as though it was meant to be comforting. Arthur didn’t think he was alone in not finding it comforting at all. Even Gwaine seemed to be struck dumb.  
  
“Are we sure they’re not going to try this during the day?” Lancelot asked.  
  
“With Gaius there?” Elyan asked. “I tried to eat my lunch in R&D once, almost touched one of his experiments. I was out the door before I even realised what was happening. He knows the place too well, and he designed the security system. They won’t risk it while he’s there. He’s too smart to be taken in for long.”  
  
“It works the other way too, though,” Gwaine pointed out. “If they can’t get in there, that goes doubly for us. Morgana and Morgause might arouse Gaius’s suspicions, but they at least work there still. Gwen and Elyan might make it inside, but the rest of us wouldn’t last half a second.”  
  
Arthur looked around, thinking furiously.  
  
“We’ll have to go in after dark, then, and hope that Gaius has gone home. Elena, show us how we’re going to go in, and let’s come up with a plan for what to do when we get there. When we know what we’re doing we can get some more rest. Most of us have barely slept.” He looked around at the faces that surrounded him, and wondered how they were ever going to pull this off.  
  
*  
  
Once they were past the main floors, they split up. It hadn’t been Arthur’s idea, he had wanted to keep them together; there were few enough of them as it was. But Leon had pointed out that Merlin might be better placed somewhere Morgana and Morgause couldn’t see him, so he could work magic from a distance, without them being able to target him. Arthur hadn’t been able to argue with that. Merlin could help them just as much from the other side of the room as he could from alongside them, and keeping him concealed might give them a small advantage.  
  
So Elena had led Merlin and Gwaine off (Gwaine having insisted that someone needed to watch Merlin and Elena’s backs) leaving the rest of them heading for the Department armoury.  
  
Elyan’s code got them through the door, and they grabbed everything they could, from protective gear to weaponry. They raided every cupboard they came across until they looked like strange metal hedgehogs, bristling with guns and blades.  
  
The problem with carrying so much was that they lost the ability of stealth. Every step Arthur took seemed to clank, and he was sure that wherever Morgana and Morgause were they could hear every step he took. They were waiting for him, all of them.  
  
They headed towards the stairs down to R&D, luckily not running into anyone. There were no call outs. The magical world was strangely silent. Arthur had his suspicions about that. Word had got out about Nimueh’s death and the stones. No one wanted to attract attention right then. And if the magic users knew about Uther’s death and the state of emergency, they’d no better than to risk the mercy of the Department tonight.  
  
So things were quiet as they made their way down. No one spoke. Gwen and Elyan had managed to hack the camera and audio systems, so that no one could see or hear them, but people still seemed afraid to make a noise.  
  
The room was humming before they even got there and Arthur could hear Gaius’ voice, clearly agitated.  
  
“I’m not going to help you with this. Morgana! You don’t know what you’re doing.”  
  
Out in the corridor, Arthur turned back. “I thought you said they wouldn’t risk this while Gaius was there,” Arthur hissed at Elyan, who shrugged.  
  
“Maybe they need his help with the machine” suggested Gwen. “I found blueprints in your father’s desk earlier. They looked extremely complicated.”  
  
Another voice replied, a man’s voice.  
  
“Switch it on, old man,” the other man said. “I grow tired of your voice.”  
  
“Stay calm, Cenred,” a woman said. Leon mouthed “Morgause” at Arthur, who nodded. “You will get what you deserve. “Patience.”  
  
“We need to go in there,” Arthur said.  
  
“No,” Lancelot hissed back, “Elena said it would take her at least fifteen minutes to get Merlin into position. It’s only been ten. If we go in there without magical back-up then they’ll kill us where we stand.” Arthur glared at the door, but he let it go. Lancelot was right, to go in there without Merlin was suicide, even more so than going in there with him.  
  
So Arthur held his position.  
  
“If they do this while we’re waiting for Merlin to get there, then I will kill him,” Arthur breathed.  
  
“It’s still seven minutes to midnight. They’re not going to start it yet,” Gwen said. Arthur nodded.  
  
“Switch it on, Gaius,” Morgause said, her voice clear even through the door. “Or we’ll kill your little protégée here.”  
  
There was a moan of pain.  
  
“Hostage,” Percival said, adjusting one of his guns. Arthur was suddenly very glad that Percival was on their side.  
  
“All right, all right,” Gaius said. “Leave the boy alone… I’ll turn it on.”  
  
“Finally,” the man – Cenred – said.  
  
“Stand in the circle,” Morgause commanded. There was the sound of footsteps, heavy and booted, and then they came to a halt.  
  
“Circle to the Centre,” Arthur said, looking at the sign by the door.  
  
“Sorry?” Leon said.  
  
“Nothing,” Arthur said after a moment. “Just something a dragon told me.” he ran one finger over the words ‘Research and Development Centre’ and smiled.   
  
“Right,” Leon said. He didn’t sound convinced.  
  
There was a sudden shudder through the corridor and then the entire world began to vibrate. A whooshing noise came, and there was a dim glow through the cracks around the door.  
  
“Can we go in yet?” Arthur said. Lancelot checked his watch.   
  
“Three more minutes,” he said.  
  
“I thought Merlin said midnight,” Arthur said.  
  
“He did,” Lancelot agreed.  
  
“Is your watch right?” Arthur asked. The glowing got brighter.   
  
“I checked it earlier, it’s as accurate as I can get it, to the atomic clock.” He was frowning, though.  
  
“Soon I’ll have power of my own,” Cenred said. “Power to do as I please. Magic of my own.”  
  
“They’re giving some guy magic?” Elyan asked. “That’s what this was all about, just giving some man magic?” Arthur frowned. Freya had been convinced that this was worse than that, she had mentioned it as a possibility. But the lengths that Morgana and Morgause had gone to, it didn’t seem like they’d do all that for nothing.  
  
“We’ve got to go in,” Arthur said. “They might be distracted.”  
  
“Two minutes, Arthur.”  
  
Then the screaming began. It started muffled, like the screamer was trying to keep his composure, but after a few seconds it descended into hysterical shrieks of pain.  
  
“Turn it off!” Cenred shouted. “Turn it  _off_!”  
  
“No,” Morgause said simply.  
  
“It’s tearing me apart… I can feel it. It’s… oh-” Whatever else it was was cut off by another ear piercing scream.  
  
“Sorry, Cenred. But the magic requires a sacrifice first, and you did volunteer for the role.”  
  
“You told me I’d get the power,” Cenred managed to shout between screams.  
  
“I told you that you’d get what you deserve,” Morgause said. “You should really have learnt to listen.”  
  
After that Cenred didn’t speak again, he just screamed and screamed, never breaking, until one final scream broke off in a strange gurgle and then there was silence and the glowing stopped again.  
  
“One minute,” Lancelot said in a shaky voice. Arthur didn’t say a word.  
  
“What have you done?” Gaius asked. He sounded dull and quiet, after the sharp, clear agony of Cenred’s screaming. “Do you know what you’re doing? Morgana!”  
  
And then Morgana’s voice replied, harder than Arthur had ever heard it before. It still cut him to the quick, knowing that it was her, that all along it had been her. Even before he had known there was something going on, it had been Morgana.  
  
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Gaius,” she said, utterly confident. “I’m helping to build a better world. A world where magical people don’t have to hide.”  
  
“And those without magic?” Gaius asked.  
  
“They’ve had their chance,” Morgause said.  
  
“Most people in this world don’t even know that magic exists,” Gaius said in what Arthur always thought of as his ‘reasonable voice’.  
  
“And those that do have slaughtered us, chained us up and beaten us down,” Morgana said. “Do you know how that feels?”  
  
“My dear –“  
  
“I’m  _not_  your dear!” Morgana said, losing her composure.   
  
Arthur looked across the doorway to where Lancelot was standing, flattened against the wall.   
  
“Now,” Lancelot whispered, “We go now.”  
  
Arthur flooded with relief, anything would be better than standing here, waiting. He saw the strained looks on people’s faces. He could tell that he wasn’t the only one praying that Merlin, Gwaine and Elena had made it through.  
  
“On three,” Arthur agreed in a hissed whisper. He held up fingers to count it out, choosing not to speak. He wasn’t sure he’d keep his voice low enough to maintain the element of surprise. His body was flooded with adrenaline.  
  
As Arthur’s third finger raised, they started to move, crashing through the door, guns drawn, yelling as loudly as they could. It didn’t matter what they yelled, really, just as long as they made enough noise to catch Morgana and Morgause off guard.  
  
They succeeded, after a fashion. But whether Merlin had got lost on the way, or whether he was late, or dead, Arthur didn’t know. But Morgana and Morgause’s magic was still very much at their disposal and there were no convenient shields that popped up.  
  
Arthur managed to make it three feet into the room before it felt like he was moving through treacle, every limb struggling against immense force as he went. Even opening his mouth was a battle against the odds.   
  
He had to stop after only trying for a few seconds, the effort it was taking simply too breathe almost too much.  
  
“How nice to see you all,” Morgause said, smiling serenely. Arthur took his first proper look at her – that he could remember anyway – and felt himself go icy cold. She was beautiful, true, but she looked cruel. Right at that moment she looked like he had always imagined the Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale to look. All pale, cold and hard, with nothing inside her but ice. She raised a hand and he felt himself lifted off the floor and thrown back against the wall. “I suppose it’s only fitting that you be given front row seats to the end of your world. All you little people who’ve been trying so very hard to maintain the status quo. It’ll be such a shame to see your hard work crumble down around your ears.”  
  
Arthur looked over at Morgana, wanting to see something there, something that he remembered. But there was nothing but a faintly amused interest. She didn’t look concerned or worried about him, or about anything. She looked as though he was nothing more important than an ant way down below her on the pavement. He swallowed, thick and painful around the treacle feeling.  
  
The others were pinned too, lined up along the wall like statues round a crypt. The only parts of them moving were their eyes. Leon looked resigned, Lancelot worried and Gwen looked out furious, Arthur could almost see the flames spilling from her eyes as she looked at Morgana, but she didn’t open her mouth to say a word. And across from him was a young man, who must have been barely out of university, in a lab coat. He was bleeding profusely from one leg and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness. Arthur vaguely recognised him from just walking around the Department, but he couldn’t put a name to the face.  
  
“You are just in time for the main event,” Morgause said. “Right on time to see Morgana take her rightful place.”  
  
“I’ve told you, Morgause,” Gaius said, “It’s not ready to be used. It’s just a prototype, in the first stages of development.” He looked tired and old. Arthur had always thought of him as an old man, even when Arthur was just a tiny child, Gaius had seemed unthinkably ancient. But he had never thought of him as being like other old people – frail, tired and easily broken – not until now. He looked tiny. Perhaps it was because Arthur was pinned over a metre above the floor, looking down at everything, but he didn’t think so. Gaius looked like he was fraying at the edges. Was it just tonight or had it been like this since Arthur’s father… since Uther…  
  
Arthur looked away, unable to see Gaius like that. It seemed that the last couple of days were going to force him to see everyone he knew the wrong way round.  
  
“It’ll do what we need it for,” Morgause said.  
  
“You think that no one’s tried to do this before?” Gaius asked. “The dragon stones have been around for thousands of years, and you honestly think that no one has tried this before.” Arthur finally noticed the stones. He had been so caught up with the people before that he hadn’t seen them, lying unobtrusively in the centre of the room. They were in a circle, evenly spaced, and in the centre of them was what looked like a blackened scorch mark. It was shaped like a twelve pointed star, each point going out to one of the stones. “To control all magic,” Gaius said, “it’s something people dream of. But you have to be strong enough.”  
  
“Morgana is strong,” Morgause said firmly, smiling over at Morgana who smiled back happily. The expression was incongruous with the situation. It was a little girl smile, pleased at praise from an idol and it made Arthur swallow compulsively. He had to remember that she wasn’t Morgana anymore, she was the enemy. “She had enough strength to kill Uther.”  
  
Arthur didn’t scream. He couldn’t move and he didn’t scream. He just hung there, on the wall, as silent as a bloody painting and  _stopped_. For a moment everything in his head just  _stopped_. Every thought, every wish, every emotion stopped dead in its tracks and Arthur hung there. Just for a moment, an everlasting, but far too quick, moment.  
  
Then it fell in on him, bits and pieces of half-thoughts, chaos around the edges of him, blackening the edges of his sight and making his ears roar with the sound of his pulse.  
  
He strained against the magic that held him still, but there was no fighting it. There was no fighting any of it. He jerked and pulled against the bonds until he could hardly breathe with the effort, and then he carried on. He couldn’t stand there and do nothing he couldn’t-  
  
Leon caught his eye, watching him motionlessly but sure, and Arthur fell still again. He looked at Lancelot, who was just as still, but staring at him just as intently, and Gwen whose eyes were full of sorrow and concern, and Percival, who seemed to understand, without even knowing him, exactly what was going on.  
  
Arthur had never put much faith in those so called wordless communications that people made, but he thought that, in that moment, he sort of understood. There weren’t volumes of information in his friends’ eyes, they weren’t telling him anything, and he couldn’t make out entire sentences behind their eyes. But there was knowledge, that he wasn’t alone.  
  
He let his muscles relax. They ached.  
  
While he had been fighting, Morgana and Morgause had been preparing something or other, and they had convinced Gaius, through some threats to himself and the others, no doubt, to turn the machine on again.  
  
Morgause hugged Morgana fiercely. It seemed like they didn’t even realise that there was anyone else in the room with them.  
  
“Take your place, sister,” Morgause said. “Become who you were born to be.”  
  
“Her magic isn’t powerful enough,” Gaius said again, in warning. “You saw what happened to Cenred.”  
  
Arthur looked back at the star-shaped burn mark and really wished that Gaius hadn’t said that.  
  
“The sacrifice was part of the ritual. That was supposed to happen,” Morgause said. “Cenred was an idiot, who didn’t have a magical bone in his body.”  
  
“The machine concentrates magic. It didn’t matter that Cenred wasn’t magical. He couldn’t have taken that much power in even if he was. It’s a matter of physics. The human body, magical or not, isn’t designed to hold power like that. It just doesn’t fit.”  
  
“Get on with it, old man. You’re not fooling anyone,” Morgause said, snapping.  
  
“I’m not trying to fool anyone.” Gaius argued. “It’s foolish to enter into an experiment without some idea of the risks involved, and I’m telling you that I’ve watched Morgana grow up, I know how strong her magic is, and I know she won’t be able to handle this. I’d prefer not to watch another person burn alive today.”  
  
“You knew?” Morgana said, clearly fixating on the wrong part of Gaius’s speech. “All these years you  _knew_  and you said nothing?”  
  
“What would I have said?” Gaius asked, sighing deeply. He looked over at Arthur apologetically, but avoided Morgana’s gaze completely. “You were Uther Pendragon’s daughter, for all intents and purposes. What could I have said?”  
  
“Anything!” Morgana snapped. She opened her mouth as if to say more, but words failed her. “Enough. You’ll pay for your mistakes soon enough, just like Uther paid for his. Turn it on.”  
  
As Gaius moved towards the machine, Arthur’s eyes caught a flash of movement high above them. In the steel supports in the roof, that kept the building above them from crashing down. It wasn’t much, just a flash of light colour, but it was enough to draw his attention, and once it had drawn it, he concentrated.  
  
High up above them, up in the ceiling, there were three shapes that were probably just some pipes, or wiring. But, if you looked at them for too long, they looked like they might be three people, crouching in the rafters, looking downward.  
  
One of the people moved.  
  
Arthur’s attention snapped back to Morgana and Morgause, but they hadn’t looked up, they hadn’t noticed. He glanced upwards again, but his eyes couldn’t find the shapes again. He couldn’t keep himself from hoping, just a little bit, that somehow, some way, Merlin and Gwaine would find a way to get them all out of this. He didn’t know if Merlin could break a spell that had already been cast, but he hoped that he’d get them down from the wall.  
  
Morgana took her place in the stone circle, standing on what Arthur was now painfully aware, were Cenred’s ashes. As she did so, she and Morgause began to chant. He couldn’t make out the words. They weren’t in English or any other language that he knew, or even one that he had heard before. But they seemed to strike something deep in his stomach that jumped at them. It felt a little like nausea and a little like sitting on a roller coaster at the top of a huge drop.  
  
At first he didn’t notice it, but the stones were starting to glow, a fiery red-orange. Second after second the glow grew stronger, and for the first time he understood why they had been called dragon stones. They looked like they were alight. Morgana stood in the centre of it all, lit from below by the magical firelight. It reminded him of the strange nights they had spent camping in the bottom of the garden as children, the two of them and a torch. Morgana had loved to tell ghost stories and Arthur had tried never to seem scared. The lighting was the same now as it had been then.  
  
Perhaps Merlin succeeded, perhaps Morgause was distracted, or maybe the stones were already leeching the magic from the world around them, because suddenly Arthur pitched forwards and fell to the ground. He heard the thuds from around him as the others did the same.   
  
He was on his feet in seconds, but the glow was so bright by now, and a wind was picking up, making the stone circle into a vortex that he couldn’t approach. It was almost as difficult to take a step forward into the growing winds as it had been to walk with Morgause’s spell on them.  
  
“It’s too late,” Morgause called out over the howling. “There’s nothing you can do to stop her now.” As if to reinforce what she had said, the pitch of Gaius’ machine rose another few tones, to a note that seemed to reverberate through Arthur’s skeleton. He winced. “In a few moments, it’ll all be over, and you will get the punishment you richly deserve.”  
  
Arthur looked around for something – anything – that he could use to stop this. His gun was no good, the bullet wouldn’t have any more hope against a magical vortex than he would. But there was nothing nearby.  
  
He stared at her, helpless, before turning to the others, hoping against hope that one of them would have an idea.  
  
And they did.  
  
“What we need” Gwen said, with a small smile, “is more time.”  
  
“Time?” Leon said, reaching into his pocket. “I might be able to help with that.”  
  
Arthur had never seen anything like it before, the vortex slowed and ground to a halt, the fierce orange faded into brown. It was like he was standing in a bubble.  
  
“That won’t hold for long,” Lancelot said, “if they’re sucking all of the magic out of this place, then that’s going to go first.”  
  
“All the magic except the stuff in people,” a familiar voice said from behind Arthur.  
  
He turned in astonishment, to see Merlin standing behind him, a grin pasted to his face. Gwaine was on one side of him, peering at the world outside the bubble, and Elena was on the other, smirking at him.  
  
“You were…” Arthur pointed upwards.   
  
“We moved,” Elena said.   
  
“She’s startlingly good at being quiet when she’s doing something illegal,” Gwaine said with a grin. “I’m actually a little worried. Merlin was a little less… stealthy.”  
  
“I didn’t make a noise.”  
  
“Only because you used magic,” Elena pointed out. “And speaking of magic, aren’t we supposed to be saving the world or something?” She looked to where the whirlwind stood, frozen in a moment.  
  
Merlin nodded.  
  
“Right, yes… that would be my job.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Arthur said. “We have to get out of here, there’s nothing we can do now.” Merlin looked at him for a long moment as though he really wanted to say something – something stupid no doubt, or maybe something about feelings. “We’ll regroup. Start afresh.”  
  
“No,” he said finally. “If this works, Morgana’s going to be the most powerful being in the known universe. It’s now or never.”  
  
“Tell us what to do,” Lancelot said, before Arthur could get a word in edgeways. He was looking at Merlin like he really believed that Merlin could do it, could stop it. Of all of them, Lancelot had known Merlin’s magic for the longest, Arthur remembered. Perhaps he didn’t know it as well as Gwaine did now, but he had worked with him at the Department, knowing about his magic, and he thought Merlin could do this, could stop this.  
  
“Stay back, take cover,” Merlin said. “If this doesn’t work then… well, I hope it works.” He walked to the edge of the bubble nearest to Morgause and Morgana. Arthur started after him, but a hand grasped his shoulder and held him back.  
  
“There’s nothing you can do to help him now,” Gwaine said. He didn’t sound any happier about it than Arthur felt. “If you try to help you’ll only get in his way. You’d hurt more than you’d help.”  
  
“I can’t just stand here,” Arthur protested. He felt useless again. His father’s murderers were within his grasp and he had to stand back and let someone else deal with them.  
  
“That’s why I’m here to hold you back,” Gwaine said succinctly.  
  
Merlin nodded to Leon, who undid whatever it was he had done before, and suddenly the world was starting up again and the bubble was disappearing into nothing.  
  
Arthur tried to run forward, but Gwaine was expecting it, and held him back, and then he had no choice but to watch, all over again, as Merlin ran forwards towards Morgana.  
  
Before he got there, though, there came an almost unearthly scream from inside the vortex. Morgana’s voice, Arthur could recognise it even as stretched and broken as it was, and she was in a lot of pain. It sounded like Cenred had sounded, right at the end, when the magic had burnt him up.  
  
“Morgana?” Morgause called, but all she got in reply was more screaming.   
  
“I warned you she wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Gaius said. Morgause glared at him, and strode towards the vortex, but she was thrown backwards by the force of it. Even then, Morgana didn’t stop screaming.  
  
Then Merlin did something incredibly stupid.  
  
Arthur was used to Merlin doing stupid things. His life while Merlin had worked for the Department had been spent trying to work out what stupid thing Merlin was doing and stop it from causing all their deaths. But he had never seen Merlin do anything quite like this.  
  
He stepped towards the vortex, raised his hand and said, “Let me through.”  
  
Just those words, like he was talking to an annoying toddler who was blocking a hallway. “Let me through.”  
  
There was a pause, which was probably shorter than it felt to Arthur, whose pulse was racing, and then, like a curtain being drawn aside, a gap formed in the vortex. A gap through which Arthur could see Morgana, standing rigid. Every muscle in her body was taut, her head was thrown back, her mouth open. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was  _screeching_  in agony.  
  
Then Merlin stepped through the gap, without looking back, and it closed behind him.  
  
Not long after that, the screaming stopped, and the glow suddenly brightened all at once to clear white light, so bright that Arthur had to close his eyes and shield them in his arm.  
  
Morgause was still screaming Morgana’s name, and she went on screaming Morgana’s name even as the light got so bright it cut through Arthur’s arm and his eyelids so that all he could see was white. She was raving and yelling at Merlin, telling him to let her sister go.  
  
Then there was darkness.  
  
It was so dark that Arthur thought that he must have gone blind, and so sudden that he was left reeling.  
  
He lowered his arm and blinked, but there was nothing but black in every direction, only the sounds of people breathing and Morgause’s anger, and the firm grip of Gwaine’s arm across his chest, kept Arthur rooted in reality.   
  
The lights flickered back into being and the first thing Arthur saw was Merlin, holding Morgana up, blood dripping from his nose. The next thing he heard was an almighty  _crack_  and everyone looked down at the stones where they sat on the floor. All of them but one, cracked right in half.  
  
“Huh,” Elena said. “That’s a pity, I could have fenced those.” Arthur chose to ignore her, focusing more on Merlin and Morgause, who was flying at him like an avenging banshee.  
  
But she was caught before she got to him, lifted off the ground, kicking and screaming, like she weighed nothing at all.  
  
“She’s alive,” Merlin said, looking up at Morgause. “She’s alive, and considering what she just went through, I think that’s the best thing you can hope for.”  
  
“What did you do to her?” Morgause asked. “What did you  _do_?”  
  
“I saved her life,” Merlin said, sounding a little astonished at his own actions.   
  
“Merlin, my boy,” Gaius stepped forwards, “Are you alright?” Merlin blinked at him and grinned.  
  
“Gaius!” he exclaimed. “It’s good to see you.”  
  
“Yes, yes. You too,” Gaius said swiftly, “but are you alright?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Merlin said with a shrug.  
  
“Merlin,” Gaius said, in his least impressed tone. “You’re crackling.”  
  
Arthur hadn’t noticed it until then, but it was true, every move Merlin made seemed to be accompanied by static electricity, his fingers twitched and there were sparks between them, he turned his head and his hair did the same thing.  
  
“Am I?” Merlin asked. “That’s weird.”   
  
Arthur looked around, but no one seemed any more aware of what was going on than he was. Elena had walked over to where Leon was standing, and Lancelot and Gwen were wrapped up in each other, but no one looked exactly well-informed.  
  
Merlin turned to Morgause.  
  
“I think…” he began. “It was too much for Morgana on her own,” he said, starting again. “but it wasn’t too much for both of us.” He leant down to pick up the final stone and slipped it into his pocket. “So it’s in both of us now.”  
  
“Both of you?” Morgause asked, she sounded horrified.  
  
“Yes… but it’s not,” Merlin paused again, cocking his head to one side, like he was listening to something. “It’s not what you think it is. You think that the stones give someone the power over all the magic in the world. You think that they take it all and stuff it into one person. They don’t. It’s not the magic that’s transferred… it’s the knowledge.”  
  
“The texts said power.”  
  
“Knowledge is power,” Gwaine muttered in Arthur’s ear. It was almost enough to make him laugh. Merlin just shrugged.  
  
Morgana groaned, her head lolling slightly and the entire room hushed as she opened her eyes and her mouth.  
  
“The dancing’s over,” she said slowly. “Did I end up with the wrong partner?”  
  
Morgause stared at her sister, her mouth open. Morgana looked back, her face blank and confused.  
  
“What did you do to her?” Morgause asked Merlin. She wasn’t loud anymore, but quiet and hollow.  
  
“Her brain couldn’t take it,” Merlin said a little sorrowfully. “She can’t fix on what’s here and what’s everywhere. It is a little confusing.”  
  
“But you’re somehow fine?” Morgause asked.  
  
“I wasn’t in there as long,” Merlin said. He spoke slowly, like he was trying out the words, testing the idea as he said it. “Morgana was in there for ages, all by herself. She lost touch with herself.”  
  
“Morgause,” Morgana said suddenly.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Which you are you?” Morgana asked. “I’ve seen so many. You were in the fire, a million of you. And you were burning.”  
  
“I’m the real me,” Morgause said slowly.  
  
“You’re all real,” Morgana told her. “Every one of you. I see you… all of you.”  
  
Morgause stared at her, horrified, her face crumpling. Arthur knew exactly how she felt in that moment, he could see the despair burying her, but he didn’t feel sympathy, or pity. He felt glad.  
  
Then Morgause raised her hand to point a finger at Merlin and she began chanting again, despair turning into rage.   
  
Arthur didn’t even think about it, a gun was already in his hand before he had time to think about it. Merlin looked dead on his feet and knowledge or no knowledge he wouldn’t be able to stop a curse right now, even if someone gave him a mirror and body armour.  
  
His wasn’t the only gun fired, Morgause fell with more than three bullet holes in her. Morgana watched her fall with as much emotion as someone watching dominoes topple. She looked at Arthur and smiled. It wasn’t the smirk that she’d turned on after he walked through the door and it wasn’t the rare smile of true happiness that she had always tried to conceal growing up. It was loose, open and blank.  
  
“Did you know that you’re gold and red around the edges?” she asked.  
  
Then Merlin collapsed face first onto the concrete floor and she went following after.  
  
*  
  
 **Epilogue**  
  
Merlin didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t like the way they smelt, or the way they felt. Even the magic in them was wrong. It had a sickly sweet edge to it and it made his flesh crawl.  
  
It didn’t help that he knew more than the doctors did. He knew more than them about practically everything now. He knew their lives, their dreams. He knew who was going to die and who would live. He knew who was going to walk through the door before they even knew they were going to his room. And he knew more about magic and the magical than he had ever thought could be fitted inside one skull.  
  
He amused himself when the nurses weren’t there by doing silly little tricks, tapping into time and rewinding, fast-forwarding, looking across time to see how it folded around people.  
  
The things that he hadn’t been able to handle before, came easily now, too easily. There wasn’t even a challenge to him. He knew how to bend the world around him. He sort of wished that he had ended up like Morgana in a way. She seemed happy enough, though it was difficult to get a straight answer out of her.  
  
She was disconnected from the world completely, and she couldn’t  _use_  what she knew. But Merlin could. He could see how to use it for good and for – not so good purposes. He could see how he could make the world a better place for everyone. But he could see where that would lead him.  
  
He knew more than anyone alive had ever known – apart from Morgana – but he knew enough to know that he couldn’t use that knowledge. But even that was using the knowledge.  
  
He could also see the Arthur was walking down the corridor towards his room, so he set his conundrum aside for a moment and went back to just staring at the ceiling.  
  
Arthur had brought books. Merlin could see them, he knew what was in them, all of it every word. But he knew that he’d read them anyway, because Arthur had brought them. He knew that Arthur had brought books because books were neutral and Arthur didn’t want to assume. He knew that Arthur was thinking about how to apologise.  
  
He knew what would happen when Arthur apologised. And he knew what would happen after that. He knew too much.   
  
So he switched it off, turned off the part of himself that was looking into the future, the part of him that couldn’t help but look into people’s brains. He opened a door somewhere at the back of his mind and shoved it into himself so that it would only come out of he needed it. He knew how to do that as well.  
  
And then he didn’t.  
  
Merlin blinked at the ceiling and tried to remember what had happened in the past few days. He was in the Department’s hospital, he could tell that, but what was he doing there. He remembered Morgana and Morgause, and the circle.  
  
They must have succeeded because he was alive and he was here in bed. So they must have succeeded.  
  
The door to his room swung open and he turned around, expecting a doctor. He wasn’t expecting to see Arthur, a pile of books tucked under his arm. Merlin grinned.  
  
“Hi,” he said.  
  
“Hi,” Arthur asked. “Uh… Gwaine wanted me to ask you what enlightenment was like.”  
  
“Enlightenment?” Merlin asked, confused. “What do you mean?”  
  
Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but he shut it again after a pause, sort of smiling and sort of frowning. It was an odd expression. But then, Arthur was an odd person.  
  
“Never mind,” Arthur said. “I brought you some books, in case you got bored.”  
  
“Thanks,” Merlin said, feeling a little disconnected. “So I take it we won, then.”  
  
“Yeah, we won…” Arthur said. He looked away from Merlin’s face, avoiding eye contact in the way he always did when he was uncomfortable, his eyes flicking around the room. “And I have something I need to say to you.” Merlin waited.  
  
“It’s not enough,” Arthur said. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would be enough. But… I’m sorry.”  
  
Merlin blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Arthur repeated. “For… well…”  
  
“It’s all right,” Merlin said, smiling again and reaching out for the books. Arthur handed them over. “I can probably forgive you, if you keep bringing me books.”  
  
“I’ll remember that.” Arthur paused, fidgeting a little from foot to foot. Merlin watched him, still smiling. It was always amusing to see Arthur this uncomfortable. “Anyway, you’re not a fugitive anymore, nor am I… or Gwaine. So I… I called your mother. She’s coming down to see you.”  
  
“You called my Mum?” Merlin asked. He smiled so much that he felt as though his cheeks were splitting. “Really?”  
  
“Yes, really,” Arthur said. “Though you might want to do something with your hair, it’s a mess.”  
  
“Hey!” Merlin protested. “I just saved the world. I can have messy hair if I want to have messy hair.”  
  
“I thought you didn’t remember that,” Arthur said, smirking.  
  
“Well, it must have been me. You couldn’t have done it without me,” Merlin said.  
  
“No,” Arthur said, shocking Merlin yet again. “No we couldn’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at https://definewisdom.livejournal.com/37071.html


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